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MENTAL AND MORAL 



SCIENCE. 



COMPENDIUM 



OP 



PSYCHOLOGY AND ETHICS. 



BT 

ALEXANDER BAIN, M.A., 

• i 

PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. 



LONDON: 
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

186 8. 



(The right of Translation is reserved.) 



BF/3/ 



17 H <* I °\ 

2- >" S k,t 



PREFACE. 



The present treatise contains a Systematic Exposition of 
Mind, a History of the leading Questions in Mental 
Philosophy, and a copious Dissertation on Ethics. 

The Exposition of Mind, occupying nearly half the 
work, is, for the most part, an abridgement of my two 
volumes on the subject. I have singled out, and put in 
conspicuous type, the leading positions ; and have given a 
sufficient number of examples to make them understood. 
It is not to be expected that the full effect of the larger 
exposition can be produced in the shorter ; still, there may 
be an occasional advantage in the more succinct presenta- 
tion of complicated doctrines. 

As regards the Controverted Questions, I have entered 
fully into the history of opinion, so as to present the 
different views, both formerly, and at present, entertained 
on each. Nominalism and Eealism, the Origin of Know- 
ledge in the mind, External Perception, Beauty, and Free- 
will, are the chief subjects thus treated. 

The Dissertation on Ethics is divided into two parts. 

Part First — The Theory of Ethics — gives an account of 
the questions or points brought into discussion ; and 
handles at length the two of greatest prominence, the 
Ethical Standard, and the Moral Faculty. 

Part Second — The Ethical Systems — is a full detail of 
all the systems, ancient and modern, by conjoined Abstract 



IV PREFACE. 

and Summary. With few exceptions, an abstract is 
made of each author's exposition of his own theory, the 
fulness being measured by relative importance ; while, for 
better comparing and remembering the several theories, 
they are summarized at the end, on a uniform plan. 

It is not solely with the view of furnishing a complete 
manual of Mental and Moral Philosophy, that I have 
included in the. same volume, a System of Psychology, and 
an exhaustive Dissertation on Ethics. The connexion of 
the two subjects is of the most intimate kind ; all the 
leading Ethical controversies involve a reference to the 
mind, and can be settled only by a more thorough under- 
standing of mental processes. 

Aberdeen, April, 1868. 






TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

CHAP. I. 

DEFINITION AND DIVISIONS OF MIND. 

Page. 

1. Human Knowledge falls under two departments ... ... 1 

2. The Object department marked by Extension ; the Subject, by 

the absence of this property ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. Subject Experience — Mind proper — has three functions, Feeling, 

Will, and Thought. Other classifications of Mind ... ... 2 

4. Order of arrangement for exposition ... ... ... 3 

5. Concomitance of Mind and a Material Organism ... ... 4 

CHAP. II. 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 

1. The Brain is the principal organ of Mind. Proofs ... ... 5 

2. The Nervous System consists of a Central mass, and ramifying 

Nerves ... ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. The nervous substance made up of white and of grey matter. 

The ^m and the corpuscles ... ... ... ... 6 

4. The Central nerves, or cerebro- spinal axis composed of parts. I. 

The Spinal Cord ; the Reflex Movements. II. The Brain. 
Parts of the Brain : (1) Medulla Oblongata, (2) Pons Varolii, 
(3) Cerebral Hemispheres, (4) Cerebellum ; their several func- 
tions ... ... ... ... ... ... 7 

5. The nerves are divided into Cerebral and Spinal ... ... 11 

6. The function of a nerve is to transmit influence ... ... ib. 

7. Incarrying and outcarrying nerves ... ... ... 12 



BOOK I. 

MOVEMENT, SENSE, AND INSTINCT. 

CHAP. I. 
MOVEMENT AND THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

1. Muscular Feelings compared with Sensations. The muscular 

system ... ... ... ... ... ... 13 

2. Spontaneous Activity of the system. Proofs and illustrations 14 



VI CONTENTS. 

THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. p AGa< 

3. Three classes of feelings connected with muscle ... ... 17 

Feelings of Muscular Exercise. 

4. The dead strain, or action without movement. Systematic De- 

scription : Physical Side ; Mental Side. Plan of describing 

the Feelings generally, Note .. ... ... ... 18 

5. Examples of the dead strain ... ... ... ... 22 

6. Exertion with movement ... ,.. ... ... ... ib. 

7. Slow movements ; allied to repose and passivity ... ... ib. 

8. Waxing and waning movements ... ... ... ... 23 

9. Quick movements; their exciting character... ... ... ib. 

10. Passive movements : the stimulus of riding ... ... 24 

Discriminative or Intellectual Sensibility of Muscle. 

11. With every feeling, we have consciousness of degree ... ib. 

12. Consciousness of Exertion, or Expended Force. The Mechanical 

property of matter ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

13. Consciousness of degrees of Continuance of exertion, either as 

dead strain or as movement. Time. Space ... ... 25 

14. Consciousness of the Velocity of Movement... ... ... 26 



CHAP. II. 
SENSATION. 

1. Sensation denned ... ... ... T.7 ..27 

2. Sensations classified. Defects of the enumeration of the Five 

Senses. Omission of Organic Sensations ... ... ib. 

SENSATIONS OP ORGANIC LIFE. 

Organic Muscular Feelings. 

3. Pains of injury of muscle. Fatigue and Repose ... ... 28 

Organic Sensations of Nerve. 

4. Acute Diseases of the nerves, nervous Fatigue, Healthy nerves, 

Stimulants ... ... ... ... ... ... 30 

Organic Feelings of the Circulation and Nutrition, 

5. Thirst, Inanition, arrested circulation, good and ill health ... 31 

Feelings of Respiration. 

6. Suffocation, Closeness, Exhilaration of change to pure air ... 32 

Feelings of Heat and, Cold. 

7. Pain of Chillness, Pleasure of transition to warmth .., ... 33 

Sensations of the Alimentary Canal. 

8. Classification of the kinds of Food 

9. Feelings of Digestion : Relish and Repletion, Hunger, Nausea, 

Dyspepsia ... ... ... ... ... ... 34 



CONTENTS. Vli 



SENSE OF TASTE. PAGE. 

1. Objects of Taste : chiefly the materials of Food ... ... 36 

2. The Tongue ... ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. Sensations of Taste ... ... ... ... ... 37 

4. Tastes in Sympathy with the Stomach : Eelishes and Disgusts ib. 

5. Tastes proper : Sweet and Bitter ... ... .. ... 38 

6. Tastes involving Touch : Saline, Alkaline, Sour, Astringent, 

Fiery, Acrid .. ... ... ... ... ib. 

SENSE OF SMELL. 

1. Smell related to the Lungs ... ... ... ... 39 

2. Objects of Smell : gaseous or volatile bodies ... ... ib. 

3. Development of odours, by heat, light, and moisture ... ib. 

4. Diffusion of odours ... ... ... ... ... 40 

5. The Nose ... ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

6. Mode of action of odours a process of oxidation ... ... ib. 

7. Sensations of Smell : in sympathy with the lungs are Fresh and 

Close odours .. ... ... ... ... 41 

8. Proper olfactory sensibility : Fragrant odours and the opposite ib. 
9* Odours involving tactile sensibility : Pungency ... ... 42 

SENSE OF TOUCH. 

1. Touch an intellectual Sense. The Objects, solid bodies ... 43 

2. Sensitive surface the Skin, interior of the mouth, and nostrils... ib. 

3. Action simple pressure ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

4. Sensations : (Emotional) Soft Touch, Pungent Touch, Tempera- 

ture, Tickling and acute pains ... ... ... ... 44 

5. Intellectual Sensations : Plurality of Points — Weber's experi- 

ments, Pressure ... ... ... ... ... 45 

6. Combinations of Touch with Muscular Feeling : Kesistance, 

Hardness and Softness, Roughness and Smoothness, Exten- 
sion or the Co-existing in Space ... ... ... 47 

SENSE OF HEARING. 

1. Objects of Hearing — material bodies in a state of tremor ... 51 

2. The Ear ... ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. The mode of action in hearing ... ... ... .. ^ 

4. Sensations of Sound: General Emotional effects— Sweetness, 

Intensity, Volume ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

5. Musical Sounds : Pitch, Waxing and Waning, Harmony and 

Discord ... .. ... ... ... ... 54 

6. Intellectual Sensations : Clearness, Timbre, Articulate sounds, 

Distance and Direction ... ... ... ...55 

SENSE OF SIGHT. 

1. Objects of Sight ... ... ... ... ... 56 

2. The Eye ... ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. Mode of action, in the first place an optical effect ... ... 59 

4. Binocular Vision. Seeing objects erect by an inverted image 60 

5. Sensations of Sight (Optical) : Light, Colour, Lustre ... ib. 

6. Sensations involving the Movements of the Eye : Visible Move- 

ment, Visible Form, Apparent Size, Distance, Volume, Visible 

Situation .. ... ... ... . . ... 62 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAP. III. 

THE APPETITES. 

Pagb. 

The Appetites defined. Sleep, Exercise and Repose, Thirst, 
Hunger, Sex ... ... ... . . ... ... 67 



CHAP. IV. 
THE INSTINCTS. 

Instinct defined. Instincts classified ... ... ... 68 

THE PRIMITIVE COMBINED MOVEMENTS. 

h The Locomotive Rhythm ... ... ... ... 69 

2. Its Analysis .. ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. Primitive Associated movements ... ... ... ... 70 

4. Harmony of Pace in the movements ... ... ... ib. 

THE INSTINCTIVE PLAY OP PEELING. 

1. Union of Mind and Body shown in the Expression of Feeling ib, 

2. Physical Accompaniments of the Feelings : Movements of the 

Face ... ... ... ... ... ... 71 

3. Voice and Respiratory Muscles ... ... ... ..72 

4. Muscles of the Body generally ... ... ... ... 73 

5. Organic Effects : Lachrymal Organs, Sexual Organs, Digestion, 

Cutaneous changes, Heart, Lacteal Gland in Women ... ib. 

6. General principle connecting Pleasure and Pain with bodily 

functions. Proofs of the Principle. Laughter and Sobbing 75 

7. Operation of Stimulants ... ... ... ... 78 

8. Law of Self -conservation ... ... ... ... 79 

THE INSTINCTIVE GERMS OP THE WILL. 

1. Voluntary power, a bundle of acquisitions ... ... ... ib. 

2. Primitive foundations of the Will. I. — Spontaneity ... ib. 

3. II. — Law of Self-conservation ... ... ... ... 80 

4. Accident brings about coincidences between feelings and ap- 

propriate movements ... ... .. ... ... ib. 

5. III. — The coincidences are confirmed by a process of association 81 



BOOK II. 

THE INTELLECT. 

1. The intellectual functions commonly expressed by Memory, 

Reason, Imagination, &c. ... . . ... ... 82 

2. The primary attributes of Intellect — Difference, Agreement, 

Eetentiveness ... ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. Applications of a Knowledge of the Intellectual Powers ... 84 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAP. I. 

RETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

Page. 

1. Retentiveness mostly comprehended under the Law of Conti- 

guity ... ... ... ... ... ... 85 

2. Statement of the Law ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

MOVEMENTS. 

3. Spontaneous and Instinctive actions strengthened by exercise 86 

4. Conjoined or Aggregated Movements ... ... ... ib. 

5. Successions of Movements ... ... ... ... 87 

6. Intervention of Sensations in trains of Movement ... ... ib. 

7. Conditions governing the rate of Acquisition generally ... ib, 

8. Circumstances favouring the adhesion of Movements... .. 88 

9. All acquirements suppose Physical Vigour ... ... ... 89 

IDEAL FEELINGS OF MOVEMENT. — THE SEAT OF IDEAS. 

10. Association of Ideas of Movement ... ... .. ,,, ib. 

11. The seat of Ideas the same as of SeDsations or Actualities ... ib. 

12. The tendency of Ideas to become Actualities a source of activity 

distinct from the Will ... ... ... ... ... 90 

13. The principle applied to explain Sympathy ... ... ... 91 

14. Points common to the Idea and to the Actuality ... ... 92 

15. Ideas of Movement may be associated ... .. ... ib. 

16. The rate of adhesion follows the law of Actual Movement ... ib. 

17. Movement is mentally known as expended energy in special 

muscles ... ... ... .. ... ... ib. 

SENSATIONS OF THE SAME SENSE. 

18. In all the senses, different sensations are associated together ... 93 

19. Separate ideas become self-sustaining by repetition ... ... ib. 

20. Association of Sensations of Touch ... .. ... ... 94 

21. Law of the Rate of Acquirement in Touch ... ... ... ib, 

22. The acquirements of Touch most numerous in the blind ... 95 

23. Associations of Sounds ; Musical and Articulate Sounds ... ib. 

24. Associations of Sights ; Forms and Coloured surfaces ... 97 

SENSATIONS OF DIFFERENT SENSES. 

25. Movements with Sensations. Muscular Ideas with Sensations ; 

Architecture. Sensations with Sensations ... ... 98 

26. Law of the Rate of such acquirements ... ... ... 100 

27. Localization of the Bodily Feelings ... ... .. 101 

28. Our body is an object fact with subject associations ... ... 102 

29. Associations makes differences in sensations alike in quality ... ib. 

ASSOCIATES WITH PLEASXTRE AND PAIN. 

30. Pleasure and Pain can persist and be reproduced ideally ... ib. 

31. Law of the association ... ... ... ... .. 103 

32. The Special Emotions converted into Affections ... ... 104 

33. Association of emotions with indifferent objects : Ritual ... ib. 

34. The interest of Ends transferred to the Means : Money, Formali- 

ties, Truth ... ... ... ... ... ... 105 

35. Influence of association in Fine Art. Alison's Theory ... 106 



X CONTENTS. 

Page. 

36. The Language of the Feelings has to be acquired ... ... 107 

37. The Signs of Happiness are cheering to behold ... ... &> 

38. Memories of Pleasure and Pain ... ... ... ... 108 

39. Association has a share in the Moral Sentiment ... . .. ib. 

ASSOCIATIONS OF VOLITION. 

40. Contiguous association of actions and states of feeling ... 109 

NATURAL OBJECTS. 

41. Our ideas of external nature are associations of sensible qualities ib. 

42. The Naturalist mind represents disinterested association ... 110 

43. In minds generally, the feelings sway the recollections of nature ib. 

NATURAL AND HABITUAL CONJUNCTIONS; 

44. Association of things habitually conjoined in our view ... ib. 

45. Maps, Diagrams, and Pictorial Kepresentations ... ... Ill 

SUCCESSIONS. 

46. Successions of Cycle, Evolution, Cause and Effect ... ... ib. 

MECHANICAL ACQUISITIONS. 

47. Summary of conditions of Mechanical Acquirement ... ... 114 

48. Proper duration of exercises ... ... ... ...115 

ACQUISITIONS OF LANGUAGE. 

49. Oral Language involves the Voice and the Ear ... ... 116 

50. Language a case of heterogeneous adhesion ... .. ib. 

51. Language includes fixed trains of words ... .. ... 117 

52. Operation of Special Interest in lingual acquisitions ... .. ib. 

53. Elocution involves an Ear for Cadence ... ... ...118 

54. Written language appeals to the sense of Visible Form ... ib. 

55. Short methods of acquiring language ... ... ... ib. 

56. Verbal adhesiveness an aid to the memory of expressed Know- 

ledge ... ... ... ... ... ... 119 

RETENTIVENESS IN SCIENCE. 

57. Knowledge, as Science, is clothed in artificial symbols ... ib. 

58. The Object Sciences are Concrete or Abstract ... ... ib. 

59. The Subject Sciences are grounded on self-consciousness ... 120 

60. Circumstances favouring acquirements in mental Science ... ib. 

61. Supposed faculty of Self-Consciousness ... ... .. 121 

BUSINESS, OR PRACTICAL LIFE. 

62. Acquirements in the higher branches of Industry ... ... 122 

ACQUISITIONS IN THE FINE ARTS. 

63. Fine Art constructions give refined pleasure ... ... ib. 

64. Conditions of Acquisition in Fine Art ... ... ... 123 

HISTORY AND NARRATIVE. 

65. History the succession of events as narrated ... ... ib. 

66. Transactions witnessed impress themselves as Sensations and 

Actions ... ... ... .. ... ... 124 

67. Events narrated have the aid of the Verbal Memory ... ib. 



CONTENTS. Xi 

OUR PAST LIFE. PAGE. 

68. The complex current of each one's existence ... ...124 

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON RETENTIVENESS. 

69. Existence of a Retentive faculty for things generally. Superior 

plasticity of early years; Limitation of acquirements ; Tempo- 
rary adhesiveness ... ... ... ... ... 125 

CHAP. II. 

AGBEEMENT—LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

1. Statement of the Law ... ... ... ... ... 127 

2. Similarity, in one mode, implied under Contiguity .. ... 128 

3. Impediments to the revival of the past through similarity ... ib. 

FEEBLENESS OF IMPRESSION. 

4. Impediment of Feebleness or Faintness, By what peculiarities 

overcome. Conditions of reproduction by Similarity ... 129 

SIMILARITY IN DIVERSITY — SENSATIONS. 

5. Impediment of Diversity. Special condition for this case ... 130 

6. Movements and Feelings of Movement identified ... ... 131 

7. Sensations of Organic Life ... ... ... ... 132 

8. Tastes. Identification ending in Classification ... ... 133 

9. Touch. Effects generalized and classified ... ... ... 134 

10. Hearing. Articulate language identified under diversity of 

utterance and cadence. Diversity of Meaning ... ... ib. 

11. Sight. Colours, Forms, and their combinations ... ... 136 

12. Effects common to the Senses generally ... ... ... 137 

CONTIGUOUS AGGREGATES — CONJUNCTIONS. 

IS. Objects affecting a Plurality of Senses ... ,. % ... 138 

14. Aggregates of associated Properties and Uses. The Steam En- 

gine. Davy's discovery of the composition of the alkalies. 
Botany and Zoology ... ... ... M> , ... ib. 

PHENOMENA OF SUCCESSION. 

15. Successions ideDtified under diversities. Cycle, Evolution, Cause 

and Effect. Newton's discovery of gravitation ... ... 141 

REASONING AND SCIENCE IN GENERAL. 

16. Generalizing power of the mind gives birth to : I. — Definition ; 

II. — Induction ; III. — Deduction. Reasoning by Analogy 143 

17. Scope of the Eeasoning Faculty ... ... ... ... 146 

BUSINESS AND PRACTICE. 

18. Discoveries in Practice due, in part, to Similarity ... ... ib. 

ILLUSTRATIVE COMPARISONS AND LITERARY ART. 

19. Figures of Similitude abound in all great works of literary 

genius. Bunyan, Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton ... ... 149 



XU CONTENTS. 

THE FINE ARTS IN GENERAL. PAGE. 

20. Similarity exemplified in certain of the Fine Arts ... ... 149 

SIMILARITY IN ACQUISITION AND MEMORY. 

21. Labour of Acquisition saved by the tracing of similarities ... 150 

CHAP. III. 

COMPOUND ASSOCIATION. 

1. Associations may combine their force. Statement of the Law 151 

COMPOSITION OE CONTIGUITIES. 

2. Conjunctions : Local associations ; Persons ; Uses and Proper- 

ties. Successions: Language ... ... ... ... 152 

COMPOSITION OF SIMILARITIES. 

3. This case sufficiently expressed under the Law of Similarity ... 154 

MIXED CONTIGUITY AND SIMILARITY. 

4. Great discoveries of similarity remembered partly by contiguity 155 

5. Aid to Similarity by the proximity of the things desired ... ib. 

6. Mnemonic devices ... ... ... ... ... 156 

THE ELEMENT OF FEELING. 

7. Influence of the Feelings on the trains of thought ... ... ib, 

INFLUENCE OF VOLITION. 

8. The influence of the Will indirect. Modes of its operation ... 1-57 

OBSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATIONS. 

9. Exemplified in the conflict of the Artistic and the Scientific 

points of view ... ... ... ... ... 159 

ASSOCIATION OF CONTRAST. 

10. Contrast may be analyzed into Relativity, Contiguity, Similarity, 

and the influence of Emotion .. „. ... ... 160 



CHAP. IV. 

CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

1. Processes of Original Creation ... ... ... ... 161 

MECHANICAL CONSTRUCTIVENESS. 

2. Movements combined into new groupings. Three conditions 

of the Constructive Process generally ... ... ... 162 

VERBAL CONSTRUCTIVENESS. 

3. Learning to Articulate ... ... .. ... ... 163 

4. Construction of Sentences ... ... ... ... 164 

5. Higher Combinations of language ... ... ... ib. 



CONTENTS. Xlll 



FEELINGS OF MOVEMENT. Page. 

6. Constructing new muscular ideas. Hitting a mark. Archi- 

tectural fitness ... .. ... ... ... 165 

CONSTRUCTIVENESS IN THE SENSATIONS. 

7. Organic Life ; unknown forms of pleasure and pain. The higher 

senses. Visua] constructiveness ... ... ... 166 

CONSTRUCTION OF NEW EMOTIONS. 

8. The Simpler Emotions must be experienced. Change of degree. 

Transfer to new obj ects ... ... ... ... 1 68 

CONCRETING THE ABSTRACT. 

9. Construction, from abstract elements, of images in the Concrete 169 

REALIZING OF REPRESENTATION OR DESCRIPTION. 

10. Verbal descriptions, or other Kepresentations, realized ... ib. 

CONSTRUCTIVENESS IN SCIENCE. 

11. Definitions, Inductions, Deductions, and Experimental dis- 

coveries involve constructiveness ... ... ...170 

PRACTICAL CONSTRUCTIONS. 

12. Mechanical Invention. Administrative contrivances. Judg- 

ment; adapting one's views to others. Oratory „. ... 171 

CONSTRUCTIVENESS UNDER FEELING. 

13. Certain constructions satisfy some present emotion : — Emotional 

character appears in literary composition. Bias. The Myth 172 

14. Fine Art constructions adapted to Esthetic feelings ... ... 173 

15. Imagination best exemplified under Fine Art constructiveness. 

Its elements are, (1) Concreteness, (2) Originality, (3) the pre- 
sence of Emotion. Fancy. Ideality ... ... ... 174 



CHAP. V. 
ABSTRACTION— THE ABSTRACT IDEA. 

NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

1. First stage of Abstraction to compare, identify, and classify ... 176 

2. Abstraction means attending to points of agreement and neglect- 

ing points of difference. Question how far this mental sepa- 
ration is possible ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. In one view? to abstract is to refer to a class ... ... 177 

4. Cases where we seem to form a pure abstraction : — (1) Material 

separation ; (2) Lineal Diagrams ; (3) Verbal Definition . 1 78 

5. The only generality, having separate existence, is the Name -.. 179 

6. Realism and Conceptualism ,.. ... ... ... 180 

7. Natural tendency to ascribe separate existence to abstractions ib. 



XIV CONTENTS. 

CHAP. VI. 
THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

EXPERIENCE AND INTUITION. PAGE. 

1. Question as to the existence of Intuitive or Innate truths ... 181 

2. Importance attached to the Intuitive origin of knowledge ... ib. 

3. Characters ascribed to Innate principles — Necessity and Uni- 

versality ... ... ... ... ... ... 182 

4. Objection to the doctrine of Intuition — it presumes on the finality 

of some one Analysis of the mind ... .., ... ifa 

5. Innate ideas improbable ... ... ... ... ... 184 

6. Innate general ideas would require innate particulars ... ib. 

7. The character of Necessity has nothing to do with Innate origin ib. 

8. Concessions of the supporters of Innate principles ... ... 186 

9. The controversy turns at present on the Axioms of Mathematics 

and the Law of Causation .. ... ... ... ib. 

Criterion of the ' inconceivability of the opposites* ... ... ib< 



CHAR VII. 

OF EXTEKNAL PERCEPTION. 

1. Two separate questions :— the Theory of Vision^ and the Percep- 

tion of the External and Material World ... ...188 

THEORY OE VISION. 

2. Two views of our Perception of Distance by sight ... .. ib. 

3. The native sensibility of the eye includes (1) Light and Colour, 

(2) Visible Figure and Visible Magnitude ... ... 189 

4. The visible signs of variation of Distance from the eye ... ib. 

5. The import of Distance is something beyond the ocular sensations 190 

6. Experience associates the visible signs of Distance with the 

movements that give the meaning of Distance ... ... 191 

7. Distance an inference. Experiments of Wheatstone ... ib. 

8. The perception of Distance illustrated by the Stereoscope ... 192: 

9. Admission by Berkeley's opponents that the instinctive percep- 

tion is aided by associations ... ... ... ... 19$ 

10. Objection to the theory of Acquired Perception, that we are not 

conscious of tactual or locomotive reminiscences ... ... 194 

11. Farther objection that the early experience of children is insuffi- 

cient to form the supposed associations ... ... ... ib. 

12. Observations on persons born blind and made to see ... ... 195 

13. Instinctive Perceptions of the Lower Animals ... ... ib. 

14. Observations on infants ... ... ... ... ... 196 

15. Hypothesis of hereditary transmission of the perception ..,. 197 

PERCEPTION OF A MATERIA!* WORLD. 

1. All Perception or Knowledge implies mind , VI ... ib. 

2. The Perception of Matter a distinct attitude of the consciousness 198 

3. The common view of material perception self-contradictory ... ib. 



CONTENTS. XV 

Page. 

4. Analysis of Perception ; I. — The putting forth of Muscular 

Energy, as opposed to Passive Feeling ... ... ... 198 

5. II. — Uniform connexion of Definite Feelings with Definite 

Energies ... ... ... ... ... ... 199 

6. Our own body is a part of our Object experience ... ... 200 

7. III. — Object — the common to aU; Subject — the special to each 201 

8. Giving separate existence to the Object a species of Realism ... 202 

THEORIES OF THE MATERIAL WORLD. 

Berkeley. Classification of the objects of knowledge :- — (1) 
Ideas imprinted on the senses; (2) Ideas of passions of the 
mind; (3) Ideas of memory and imagination. Peculiarity 
of using Idea for Sensation. The first class exist in a mind, no 
less than the others. The vulgar opinion a contradiction. 
Distinction of Primary and Secondary Qualities of no avail. 
Supposed substratum — matter. The reality of things not 
abolished.. Spirit is something apart from ideas .... ... ih 

Hume. Summary of his philosophical doctrines generally. The 
popular belief is that the images on the senses are the external 
objects. Philosophy teaches that nothing can be present to 
the mind but a perception. The dispute is one as to fact. By 
Perception we cannot know either continued or distinct exis- 
tence. We attain these by the mind's tendency to go on, 
even where objects fail. We have no idea of substance. 
There is no such thing as self in the abstracts Mind is a 
bundle of conceptions ... ... ..* ... ... 205 

Reid. Reclaimed against Idealism on the ground of Common 
Sense. His statements confused and contradictory • . some 
point to mediate perception, others to immediate perception. 
According to J. S. Mill, his leaning was to the first ... 2.07 

Stewart substantially at one with Reid.. Brown ... ... 208 

Hamilton". Classifies the Theories of Perception. His own 
called Natural Realism, or Immediate Perception. Involves 
a self-contradiction. His so-called ultimate analysis involves 
complex notions ... ... ... ... ,.. ib. 

Ferrier. His fundamental position. He iterates the essential 
implication of Object and Subject. Exposes the self-contra- 
dictions of the prevailing views. Regards Perception as an 
ultimate fact ... ... ... ... ... 210 

Mansel. Criticism of Berkeley. Analysis of Perception ... 211 

Bailey. Makes Perception a simple, indivisible, ultimate 
fact ... ... ... .. ... ... 212 

J. S. Mill. Advances a Psychological Theory of the Belief in 
a Material World. Postulates (1) Expectation, and (2) the 
Laws of Association. Substance, Matter, or the External 
World, is a Permanent Possibility of sensation. Distinction 
of Primary and Secondary Qualities. Application to the per- 
manence of Mind ... ... ... ... .., ib. 



XVI 



CONTENTS. 



BOOK III. 

THE EMOTIONS, 
CHAR I. 



FEELING I1ST GENERAL. 

Page. 

1. The Special Emotions are secondary and derived, and involve 

the Intellect ... ... ..... ... ... ..,215 

2. Feeling in general defined ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. Twofold aspect of Feeling— Physical and Mental ... ... 216 

4. Physical aspect of Relativity ... ... ... ... ib. 

5. Law of Diffusion" ... ... .... .,, ... ib. 



CHARACTERS OE FEELING. 

6. The Characters of Feeling fall under four classes 

Emotional Characters of Feeling.. 

7. Every feeling has its characteristic Physical side 

8. Mental side ; Quality (Pleasure and Pain), Degree, Speciality 

Volitional characters of Feeling., 

9. The voluntary actions a clue to the Feelings 

Intellectual characters of Feeling. 

10. The Ideal persistence of feelings extends their sphere 

Mixed characters of Feeling. 

11. Will combined with Ideal persistence makes Forethought 

12. Desire 

13. It is the property of every feeling to occupy the mind 

14. The influence in Belief is a mixed character 



.. 217 



, ib. 
ib. 



.. 218 
.. ib. 



. 219 
,. ib. 
. ib. 
. 220 



THE INTERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELING. 



15 

16 
17 

18 
19 






(1) The Expression indicates the feelings of others ... .. 221 

(2) The Conduct pursued indicates pleasure and pain ... ... ib. 

(3) The Course of the Thoughts hears the impress of the Feelings 222 
The influence of Belief a test of strength of feeling ... ... ib. 

The several indications mutually check each other ... ... ib. 

20. Each person may describe their own feelings : Some standard or 

common measure must be agreed upon ... ... ... 223 

21. The criteria of feeling applied to estimate happiness and misery ib. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF FEELING. 



22. An outburst of feeling passes through a certain course 

23. Alternation and periodicity of emotional states 

24. Ends to be served by the analysis of the Feelings 



224 

ib. 

225 



CONTENTS. XVII 

CHAP. IL 

THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. 

Page. 

1. The Emotions are secondary, derived, or compound feelings ... 226 

2. Plurality of Sensations, in mutual harmony, or in mutual 

conflict ... .. ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. Transfer of feelings to new objects ... ... ... ib. 

4. Coalescence of separate feelings into an aggregate or whole ib. 

5. Principle of classifying the Emotions ... ... ... ib. 

6. Detailed Classification ... ... ... ... ... 227 

CHAP. III. 

EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY : NOVELTY.— WONDER.— 

LIBERTY. 

1. Objects of Novelty. Physical circumstance ... ... 229 

2. Mental characters ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. Pain of Monotony. Species of Novelty ... .. ... ib. 

4. Variety, a minor form of Novelty ... ... ...230 

5. Surprise ; includes an element of Conflict ... ... ... ib. 

6. Wonder. Its relation to the Sublime ... ... ... 231 

7. Restraint and Liberty, referable to Conflict and Relativity ib. 

8. Liberty the correlative of Restraint .. ... ... ib. 

CHAP. IV. 
EMOTION OF TERROR. 

1. Terror defined — The apprehension of coming evil ... ... 232 

2. Physical side, a loss and a transfer of nervous energy ... ib. 

3. Mentally, Terror is a form of massive pain ... ... 234 

4. Species of Terror. (1) The case of the lower animals. (2) 

Fear in children. (3) Slavish Terror. (4) Forebodings of 

disaster generally. (5) Superstition. (6) Distrust of our 

Faculties in new operations. (7) Fear of Death ... 235 

5. Counteractives of Terror : the sources of Courage ... ... 238 

6. Re-action from Terror cheering and hilarious ... ... ib. 

7. Uses of Terror, in Government, and in Education ... ... ib. 

8. The employment of Fear in Fine Art must be qualified ... ib. 

CHAP. V. 
TENDER EMOTION. 

1, Tenderness. Its Objects are sentient beings. The excitiDg 

causes include Pleasures and Pains and local stimulants ... 239 

2. The Physical side involves (1) Touch, (2) the Lachrymal Or- 

gans, and (3) the movements of the Pharynx ... ... 240 



XV111 CONTENTS. 

Page. 

3. Link of sequence, physical and mental, between the stimulants 

and the manifestations ... ... ... ... 241 

4. Mental side : — Simple characters of the emotion ... ... 242 

5. Mixed characters : Desire ; Control of the Thoughts ... ib. 

SPECIES OF THE TENDER EMOTION. 

6. Tenderness is vented mainly on human beings ... ... 243 

The I amity Group + 

7. Mother and Offspring. Paternal relationship ... ... ib. 

8. Eelationship of the Sexes ; grounds of mutual affinity ... 244 

The Benevolent Affections. 

9. The main constituent of Benevolence is Sympathy ... .. ib. 

10. The Pleasures of Benevolence analyzed ... .. ... ib. 

11. Compassion, or Pity ... ... ... ... ... 245 

12. Gratitude founded on Sympathy, and ruled by Justice ... ib. 

13. Benevolence and Gratitude in the equal relationships ... 246 

14. The spectacle of Generosity stimulates Tenderness ... ... ib. 

15. The Lower Animals are fit subjects of tender feeling ... ib. 

16. Form of Tenderness in connexion with Inanimate things ... ib. 

Sorrow. 

17. Sorrow is pain from the loss of objects of affection; Tender- 

ness a means of consolation ... ... .. ... 247 

18. Social and Moral bearings of Tenderness . e . ... ... ib. 

Admiration and Esteem. 

19. Admiration is awakened by excellence ; and is allied to Love ... ib. 

20. Esteem respects the performance of essential Duties ... 248 

Veneration — the Religious Sentiment. 

21. The Religious Sentiment contains Wonder, Love and Awe. — 

Veneration, Reverence ... ... ... ... ib. 



CHAP VI. 
EMOTIONS OF SELF. 

1. Self intended to refer to two allied groups of feelings ... 250 

SELF-GRATULATION AND SELF-ESTEEM. 

2. The feeling arising from excellent or amiable qualities beheld in 

self ... ... ... ... .. ... ib. 

3. Physical side ... ... ... ... ... ... 251 

4. Mental side : — A mode of Tender Feeling ... ... ... ib. 

5. Specific Forms : Self-complacency, Self-esteem and Self-conceit, 

Self-respect and Pride, Self-pity, Emulation, Envy ... 252 

6. Pains of the Emotion : Humility and Modesty, Humiliation and 

Self-abasement, Self-reproach ... ... ... ... 253 

LOVE OF APPROBATION. 

7. Involves, with self-gratulation, the workings of Sympathy ... 254 



CONTENTS. XIX 

Page. 

8. Species of the feeling: mere Approbation, Admiration and Praise, 

Flattery and Adulation, Glory, Reputation or Fame, Honour; 
the rules of Polite society ... ... ... ... 255 

9. Pains of Disapprobation : Remorse; Shame ... ... ib. 

10. Self-complacency and the Love of Admiration as motives ... 256 



CHAP. VII. 

EMOTION OF POWER. 

1. Depends on a sense of superior might or energy, on comparison ib. 

2. Physical side : an increase of Power ; Laughter ... ... 257 

3. Mental side : an elating or intoxicating pleasure ... ,.. 258 

4. Species : Making a Sensation ; control of Large Operations ; 

Command or Authority ; Wealth ; Persuasion ; Spiritual 
ascendancy; Knowledge; love of Influence; Criticism; Con- 
tempt and Derision ; Ambition .. ..„ „. ... 259 

5. Pains of Impotence. Jealousy of Power ... ... ... 260 



CHAP. VIII. 

IRASCIBLE EMOTION. 

1. Arising in pain, and occasioning pleasure in inflicting pain ... ib. 

2. The Objects are persons, the authors of pain or injury ... ib. 

3. Physical manifestations : (1) Excitement ; (2) Activity ; (3) 

Organic effects ; (4) Expression or Attitude ; (5) Exultation 
of Revenge ... ... .. ... ... .., 261 

4. Mental side : the pleasure of malevolence ... ... ... ib. 

5. Ingredients of Anger : (1) an effect sought to vent activity ; 

(2) fascination in the sight of suffering ; (3) pleasure of 
power ; (4) prevention of farther pain by inducing fear ... 262 

6. Species of Anger : manifestations in the Lower Animals ; forms 

in Infancy and Childhood ; Sudden anger ; Deliberate Anger 
— Revenge ; Hatred ; Antipathy ; Warfare ; grades of offence. 
Pleasure of Malevolence called in question. Righteous Indig- 
nation; Noble Rage ... ... ... ... ... 263 

7. Interest evoked by Sympathy with irascible feeling ... ... 266 

8. Justice involves sympathetic Resentment ... ... ... ib. 

9. Punishment by law gratifies and moderates resentful passion ... 267 

CHAP. IX. 
EMOTIONS OF ACTION— PURSUIT. 

1. The attitude of Pursuit induced on voluntary activity ... ib. 

2. Physical side : (1) intent occupation of the Senses ; (2) harmo- 

nizing Muscular Activity ... ... ... ... 268 

3. Mental side; (1) interest of an end, heightened by its ap- 

proach ; (2) engrossment in Object regards, remission of Sub- 
ject regards ... ... ... ... ... ... ib. 



XX CONTENTS. 

Page. 

4. Chance, or Uncertainty, contributes to the engrossment ... 269 

5. The excitement of Pursuit is seen in the Lower Animals ... 270 

6. Field Sports ... ... .. ... ... ... ib. 

7. Contests ... ... ... .. ... ... ib. 

8. The occupations of Industry give scope for Plot-interest ... 271 

9. The Sympathetic Belationships contain Pursuit ... ... ib. 

10. The search after Knowledge ... ... ... ... 272 

11. The position of the Spectator contains the interest of Pursuit ... ib. 

12. The Literature of Plot, or Story ... ... ... ... ib. 

13. Form of pain, the prolongation of the suspense ... ... 273 

14. Pains of activity generally ... ... ... ... ib. 



CHAP. X. 
EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. 

1. Pleasures and pains attending Intellectual operations ... ib. 

2. Feelings in the working of Contiguity ... ... ... 274 

3. Pain of Contradiction or Inconsistency ... ... ... ib. 

4. Pleasure of Similarity, an exhilarating surprise ; relief from an 

intellectual burden ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

5. New identities of Science increase the range of intellectual 

comprehension ... ... ... ... ... 275 

6. Discoveries of Practice gives the pleasure of increased power ... ib. 

7. Illustrative Comparisons remit intellectual toil ... ... 276 



CHAP. XL 

SYMPATHY. 

1. Sympathy is entering into, and acting out, the feelings of others ib. 

2. It supposes (1) our remembered experience, (2) a connexion 

between the Expression of feeling and the Feelings themselves 277 

3. Sympathy an assumption of the physical displays of feeling, 

followed by the rise of the mental state ... ... ... ib. 

■i. Circumstances favouring Sympathy ... ,,, ... 278 

5. Completion of Sympathy — vicarious action ... ... 279 

6. Sympathy with pleasure and pain ... ... ... 280 

7. Sympathy supports men's feelings and opinions ... ... ib. 

8. Moulding of men's sentiments and views ... ... ... ib. 

9. Sympathy an indirect source of pleasure to the sympathizer ... 281 

10. Sympathy cannot subsist upon extreme self-abnegation ... 282 

11. Knowledge is indispensable to large sympathies ... ... ib. 

12. Imitation closely allied to sympathy. The Imitative aptitudes ib. 

CHAP. XII. 
IDEAL EMOTION. 

1. The persistence of Feeling makes the life in the Ideal ... 283 

2. Ideal Emotion is affected by Organic states ... ... 284 

3. There may be a Temperament for Emotion ... ... ib. 



CONTENTS. XXI 

Page. 

4. Some Constitutions are adapted for Special Emotions .. 285 

5. Mental Agencies: — (1) the presence of some Kindred emotion; 

(2) Intellectual forces ... ... .. ...286 

6. Feeling in the Actual often thwarted by the accompaniments 287 

7. Application of the facts to account for the power of Ideal Emotion 288 

8. Ideal Emotion is connected with Desire ... ... ... 289 



CHAP. XIII. 

ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

1. These are the pleasures aimed at in the Fine Arts ... ... ib. 

2. Distinguishing features of Fine Art pleasures : — (1) Pleasure 

is their end ; (2) Disagreeables are excluded ; (3) the Enjoy- 
ment is not monopolized ... ... .. ... 290 

3. The Eye and the Ear are the aesthetic senses ... ... 291 

4. Muscular and Sensual elements may be presented in idea ... ib. 

5. Beauty not one quality, but a Circle of Effects ... ... 292 

6. Emotions of Art in detail : I. --The simple pleasurable sensa- 

tions of the Ear and the Eye ... .. ,.. ... ib. 

7. II. — Co-operation of the Intellect with the Senses ... ... 293 

8. III. — The Special Emotions ... ... ... ... ib. 

9. IV. — Harmony a preponderating Element in Art ... ... 294 

10. The pleasures of Sound and their Harmonies : — Music ... ib. 

11. Pleasurable Sensations of Sight, and their Harmonies : — Light 

and Shade ; Colours ; Proportions ; Straight and Curved 

Forms; Symmetry; Visible Movements ... ... 296 

12. Complex Harmonies ... ... ... ... ... 298 

13. Fitness as a source of Beauty : Support; Order ... ... 299 

14. Unity in Diversity .. ... ... ... ... 300 

15. It is a principle in Art, to leave something to Desire ... ib. 

16. The Feeling of Beauty has great latitude ... ... ... ib. 

17. The Sublime : — its definition ; Human energy ; Inanimate 

things ; Support ; Natural agencies ; Space ; Time. Con- 
nexion with Terror ... ... ... ... ... 301 

18. Beauty and Sublimity of Natural Objects; Human Beauty ... 302 

THEORIES OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 

Sokrates. Holds the Beautiful and the useful to be the same 304 
Plato. Discusses opposing theories; connects Beauty with 

the theory of Ideas ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

Aristotle. Notices orderly arrangement and a certain size ... 305 

Augustin. Unity in a comprehensive design ... ... ib, 

Shaftesbury. The Beautiful and the Good both perceived by 

the same internal sense ... ... ... ... ib. 

Addison. Hutcheson. Diderot ... ... ... ib. 

Pere Buffier, Beauty is the type of each species ... ... ib. 

Sir Joshua .Reynolds. Agrees in the main with Buffier ... 306 
Hogarth. Fitness, Variety, Uniformity, Simplicity, Intricacy, 

Magnitude. The line of Beauty and of Grace ... ... ib. 

Burke. Beauty causes an agreeable relaxation of the fibres. 

Smoothne'ss ... ... ... ... ... . . 307 

B 



XXil- CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Alison. Beauty is (1) the production of some Simple Emotion ; 
(2) a peculiar exercise of the Imagination. The sensible 
qualities are not beautiful of themselves, but as the signs of 
associated emotions or affections ... ... ... 308 

Jeffrey. Adopts substantially the theory of Alison ... 312 

Dugald Stewart. Asserts, against Alison and Jeffrey, the 
intrinsic pleasures of Colour. Explains the Sublime by Height 
and its associations ... ... ... ... ... 313 

Buskin. Attributes of Infinity, Unity, Repose, Symmetry, 
Moderation. His asceticism ... ... ... .. 314 

THE LUDICROUS. 

1. The causes of Laughter ... ... ... ... ... 315 

2. Incongruity not always ludicrous ... ... ..; ... ib. 

3. The Ludicrous caused by the Degradation of some person or 

interest. Theories of Laughter : Aristotle, Quintilian, Hobbes, 
Campbell, Kant .... ... ... ... ... ib, 

4. The pleasure of degradation referable (I) to the sentiment of 

Power, or (2) to the release from Constraint .,. .... 317 



BOOK IV. 

THE WILL. 

CHAP. L 
PBIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. 

1. The Primitive Elements—Spontaneity and Self-conservation ... 318 

SPONTANEITY OF MOVEMENT. 

2. Spontaneity illustrated ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. Muscular groups or Kegions ... ... .. ... 319 

4. The members commanded separately by the will should have at 

the outset an Isolated spontaneity ... .« ... ib. 

5. Circumstances accounting for the higher degrees of the spon- 

taneous discharge ... ... .. ... ... 320 

LINK OF FEELING OF ACTION— SELF-CONSERVATION. 

6. A link has to be formed between actions and feelings ... 322 

7. Self-conservation has two branches. First, Emotional Expression ib. 

8. Secondly, the concurrence of Activity with Pleasure, and the 

obverse ... ... ... .„ ... ,.. 323 

CHAP. II. 
GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 

1. Conversion of the primitive elements into the mature volition... 325 



CONTENTS. XX111 

Page. 

2. Process of acquirement stated. The coincidence of a movement 

with a pleasure, at first accidental, is maintained by the link 
of Self- conservation, and finally associated by Contiguity. 
Exemplified in detail, in the Muscular Feelings and the Sen- 
sations ... ... .. ... ... ... 325 

3. Second stage, the uniting of movements with Intermediate Ends 332 

4. Movements transferred from one connexion to another ... 333 

5. Volition made general. The "Word of Command .. ... ib. 

6. Imitation ... ... ... ... ... ... 334 

7. Acting on the Wish to move ... ... ... ... 336 

8. Association of movements with the idea of the Effect to be pro- 

duced ... ... ... ... ... ... 337 

CHAP. III. 

CONTEOL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. 

1. All voluntary control is through the muscles ... ... 338 

CONTROL OF THE FEELINGS. 

2. The power of the Will confined to the muscular accompaniments 339 

3. The voluntary command of the muscles is adequate to suppress 

the movements under emotion ... ... ... ... 340 

COMMAND OF THE THOUGHTS. 

4. The medium is the control of Attention ... ... ...341 

5. The will has power over muscular movements in idea ... 342 

6. Command of the thoughts may be acquired ... ... ib. 

7. Enters into Constructive Association ... ... ... 343 

8. Command of the Thoughts a means of controlling the Feelings 344 

9. Power of the Feelings to influence the Thoughts ... ... 345 

CHAP. IV. 

MOTIVES, OR ENDS. 

1. Actual pleasures and pains, as Motives .. ... ... 346 

2. Prospective pleasures and pains. Circumstances of ideal persistence 347 

3. The Means of pleasure and pain : — Money, Bodily* Strength, 

Knowledge, Formalities, Virtues ... ... ... 349 

4. The Will biased by Fixed Ideas ... ... ... ...351 

CHAP. V. 

THE CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. 

1. Conflict of concurring pleasures and pains ... ... ... 354 

2. Spontaneity may oppose the motives to the Will ... .. ib. 

3. Exhaustion a bar to the influence of Motives ... ... 355 

4. Opposition of two Motives in the Actual ... ... ... id. 

5. Conflict between the Actual and the Ideal ... ... ... 357 

6. Intermediate Ends in conflict .. ... ... ... 358 

7. The Persistence of Ideas makes the Impassioned Ends ... 359 



XXIV CONTENTS. 

CHAR VI. 

DELIBERATION. — RESOLUTION. — EFFOET. 

Page. 

1. Deliberation a voluntary suspense, prompted by the evils of 

hasty action ... ... ... ... ... ... 360 

2. The Deliberative process conforms to the theory of the Will ... 362 

3. Resolution is postponed action ... ... * ... ... 363 

4. A strong motive, with insufficiency in the active organs, makes 

the state called Effort ... ... ... ' ... 365 

5. Deliberation, Resolution, and Effort, are accidents, and not 

essentials of the will. Herschel on the sense of Effort, note ib, 

CHAP. VII. 

DESIRE. 

1. Desire is a motive to act — without the ability ,.. ... 366 

2. In Desire, there is a state of conflict .. ... ... ib. 

3. Modes of escape from the unrest of Desire : — Forced quiescence ... 367 

4. Ideal or imaginary action ... ... ... ... ... 368 

5. Provocatives of Desire: — (1) the wants of the system; (2) the 

experience of pleasure .. . ... ... ... ... 369 

6. Feelings named from the state of Desire : — Avarice, Ambition, 

Curiosity ... ... ... ... ... ... 370 

7. In Desire, there may be the disturbance of the Fixed Idea ... ib. 

8. Desire not a necessary prelude to volition ... ... ... 371 



CHAP. VIIL 

BELIEF. 

1. Belief, while involving the Intellect and the Feelings, is essen- 

tially related to activity, or the Will ... ... ... ib. 

2. We are said to believe what we act upon. Apparent exceptions : 

— (1) action against our beliefs ; (2) believing where there is 
no occasion to act ; (3) belief determined by feeling ; (4) belief 
apparently an intellectual process ... ... ... 372 

3. Belief attaches to the pursuit of intermediate ends ... ... 375 

4. The intellectual element is an Association of Means and Ends ... 376 

5. Mental foundations of Belief : — (1) our Activity— Spontaneous 

and Voluntary ; we believe whatever is uncontradicted ... ib. 

6. (2) Intellectual Association is an aid to Belief ... ... 380 

7. (3) Operation of the Feelings in Belief ... ... ... ib. 

8. Belief in the order of the World varies with the three elements 382 

9. Belief is opposed, not by Disbelief, but by Doubt ... ... 384 

10. Hope and Despondency are phases of Belief ... ... ib. 



CONTENTS. XXV 

CHAP. IX. 

THE MORAL HABITS. 

Page. 

1. The Moral Habits are related to Feelings and Volitions ... 385 

2. The Moral Acquirements follow the laws of Retentiveness ... ib. 

3. Special conditions : — (1) an Initiative, and (2) a Graduated Ex- 

posure in cases of conflict ... .. ... ..» 386 

4. Habits in the control of Sense and Appetite : — Temperance. 

Command of Attention ... ... ... ... ib a 

5. Habits under the Special Emotions: — (1) Emotional suscepti- 

bility on the whole ; (2) the Emotions singly ... ... 387 

6. Habits modifying the Activity, or the Will : — Invigoration, and 

power of Endurance ... .. ... ... ... 390 

7. Control of the Intellectual trains made habitual ... ... 391 

CHAP. X. 
PRUDENCE.— DUTY.— MORAL INABILITY. 

1. Influences on the side of Prudence ... ... *.. 392 

2. Influences on the side of Duty ; — Sympathy, coupled with Pru- 

dential motives ... ... ... ... ... 393 

3. Strengthening adjuncts common to Prudence and to Duty ... 395 

4. Moral Inability is .the insufficiency of ordinary motives, but 

not of all motives ... ... ... .., ... ib. 

CHAP. XI. 
LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

1. The exposition of the Will has proceeded upon uniformity of 

sequence between motive and action. This uniformity denied 
on various grounds : Sokrates ... ... ... ... 396 

2. The perplexity of the question is owing to the inaptness of the 

words — Freedom and Necessity ... ... ... 398 

3. Meanings of Choice, Deliberation, Self-determination, Moral 

Agency, Responsibility. Responsibility for Belief. Is a man 
the author of his character ? ... ... ... ... 400 

history of the tree-will controversy. 

Plato. Aristotle. The Stoics. The Epicureans. ... 406 

Neo-Platonists : — Plotinus. Justin Martyr. Tertullian. 407 
Augustin. Doctrine of Predestination. Free-will with him 
does not mean independence of motives ... ... 408 

Aquinas. Follows Augustin in the doctrines of original sin, 
irresistible grace and predestination. Modes of meeting the 
difficulties ... ... ... ... ... # ... 409 

Calvin. Accepted, in their rigour, the views of Augustin ... 410 
Pelagius and Arminius ... ... ... ... ib. 

Hobbes. Voluntary action follows the last Appetite. Deliber- 
ation. Intention or Inclination. Liberty is freedom of com- 
pulsion from within. Nothing begins with itself ...411 



XXVI CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Descartes. We are conscious of Freedom. Liberty is not 
indifference, God's perfection requires pre-determination ... 412 

Locke. Liberty opposed, not to necessity, but to coercion. A 
man is free if his actions follow mental antecedents — pleasures 
and pains. All motives are resolved into uneasiness ... 413 

Spinoza. Free- will inconsistent with the nature of God. Ques- 
tion of evil ... .. ... ... ... ... 414 

Collins. Defends the Necessitarian doctrine ... ... ib. 

Leibnitz. Necessity is hypothetical or absolute. Hypothetical 
necessity does not derogate from liberty. Different kinds of 
Fatalism. Motives are dispositions ... ... ... 415 

Samuel Clarke. Asserts that the mind has a self-moving 
faculty ... ... ... ... ... ... 416 

Jonathan Edwards. Vindicates Philosophical Necessity. 
The will is determined by the strongest motive. Self-deter- 
mination is inconsistent and inconceivable. Liberty of 
Indifference untenable. Every event must have a cause; 
this is contradicted by free-will. Fore-knowledge supposes 
infallible sequence. Morality does not require liberty. 
Necessity does not involve bad consequences ... ... 417 

Price. Took up Clarke's view of self-motion ... ... 420 

Priestley. Controverted Price. Denied that consciousness is 
in favour of freedom. Reconciled necessity with accounta- 
bility. Permission of evil means appointing it. Actions 
must be ultimately traced to the Deity. Materialism leads to 
necessity ... ... ... ... ... ... 421 

Reid. Liberty defined. Arguments in support of Free-will. 
Refutation of Necessity .. ... ... ... 422 

Hamilton. Defends Free-will on his Law of the Conditioned, 
liberty and Necessity are both inconceivable. Freedom is a 
datum of consciousness, and is involved in duty .. ... 425 

J. S. Mill. Law of Cause and Effect established by Experience. 
The testimony of Consciousness. Accountability. Necessity 
is not Fatalism. Influence of Motives ... ... 426 



ETHICS. 



PAET I. 

THE THEORY OF ETHICS. 

CHAP. I. 
PRELIMINARY VIEW OF ETHICAL QUESTIONS. 

I.-— The Ethical Standard. Summary of views ... ...429 

II. — Psychological questions. 1. The Moral Faculty. 2. The 
Freedom of the Will ; the sources of Disinterested conduct ,. 431 



CONTENTS. XXV11 

Page. 
III. — The BotfUM, Summum Bonum, or Happiness ... ... 432 

IV. — The Classification of Duties, and the Moral Code ... 433 

V. — Kelationship of Ethics to Politics ... ... ... ib. 

VI. — Relation to Theology .. ... ... ... ib. 

CHAP. II. 

THE ETHICAL STANDARD. 

1. Ethics, as a department of Practice, is defined by its End ... 434 

2. The Ethical End is the welfare of society, realized through rules 

of conduct duly enforced ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. The Rules of Ethics, are of two kinds. The first are imposed 

under a Penalty. These are Laws proper, or Obligatory 
Morality ... ... ... ... ■ ... ... ib. 

4. The . second are supported by Rewards ; constituting Optional 

Morality, Merit, Virtue, or Nobleness ... ... ... 435 

5. The Ethical End, or Morality, as it has been, is founded partly in 

Utility, and partly in Sentiment ... ... ...437 

6. The Ethical End is limited, according to the view taken of Moral 

Government, or Authority : — Distinction between Security 
and Improvement ... ... ... .. ... 438 

7. Morality, in its essential parts, is 'Eternal and Immutable;' 

in other parts, it varies with custom ... ... ... 440 

8. Enquiry as to the kind of proof that an Ethical Standard is 

susceptible of. The ultimate end of action must be referred 

to individual judgment .. ... ... ... ib. 

9. The judgment of Mankind is, with some qualifications, in favour 

of Happiness as the supreme end of conduct ... ... 441 

10. The Ethical end that society is tending to, is Happiness, or 

Utility ; ... t ... ... ... ... ... 442 

11. Objections against Utility. I. — Happiness is not the sole aim 

of human pursuit ... ... ... ... ... 444 

12. II. — The consequences of actions are beyond calculation ... 445 

13. III. — The principle of Utility contains no motives to seek the 

happiness of others ... ... ... ... ... 446 

CHAP. III. 

THE MORAL FACULTY. 

1. Question whether the Moral Faculty be simple or complex ... 448 

2. Arguments in favour of its being simple and intuitive : — First, 

Our moral judgments are immediate and instantaneous ib. 

3. Secondly, It is a faculty common to all mankind ... ... ib. 

4. Thirdly, It is different from any other mental phenomenon ... 449 

5. Replies to these Arguments, and Counter-arguments : — First ; 

Immediateness of operation is no proof of an innate origin ... ib. 

6. Secondly, The alleged similarity of men's moral judgments holds 

only in a limited degree. Answers given by the advocates of 
an Innate sentiment, to the discrepancies ... ... ib. 

7. Thirdly, Moral right and wrong is not an indivisible property, 

but an extensive Code of regulations ... ... ... 451 

8. Fourthly, Intuition is not sufficient to settle debated questions 452 



XXViii CONTENTS. 

Page. 

9. Fifthly, It is possible to analyze the Moral Faculty ;— Estimate 
of the operation of (1) Prudence, (2) Sympathy, and (3) the 
Emotions generally ... ... ... ... ... 453 

10. The peculiar attribute of Rightness arises from the institution of 

Government or Authority ... ... ... ... 455 

11. The speciality of Conscience, or the Moral Sentiment, is identi- 

fied with our education undei Government, or Authority ... 456 



PAET II. 

THE ETHICAL SYSTEMS. 

Sokrates. His subjects were Men and Society. His Ethical Stand- 
ard indistinctly expressed. Resolved Virtue into Knowledge. 
Ideal of pursuit — Well-doing. Inculcated self-denying Precepts. 
Political Theory. Connexion of Ethics with Theology slender ... 460 

Plato. Review of the Dialogues containing portions of Ethical 
Theory : — Alkibiades I. discusses Just and Unjust. Alkibiades II. 
the Knowledge of Good or Reason. Hippias Minor identifies 
Virtue with Knowledge. Minos (on Law) refers everything to the 
decision of an Ideal Wise man. Laches resolves Courage, and 
Gharmides Temperance, into Intelligence or the supreme science of 
good and evil. Lysis (on Friendship) gives the Idea of the good 
as the supreme object of affection. Menon enquires, Is virtue teach- 
able ? and iterates the science of good and evil. Protagoras makes 
Pleasure the only good, and Pain the only evil, and defines the 
science of good and evil as the comparison of pleasures and pains. 
Gorgias contradicts Protagoras, and sets up Order or Discipline 
as a final end. Politikus (on Government) repeats the Sokratic 
ideal of the One Wise man. Philebus makes Good a compound of 
Pleasure with Intelligence, the last predominating. The Republic 
assimilates Society to an Individual man, and defines Justice as 
the balance of the constituent parts of each. Timceus repeats the 
doctrine that wickedness is disease, and not voluntary. The Laws 
place all conduct under the prescription of the civil magistrate. 
Summary of Plato's views ... ... ... ... .. 463 

The Cynics and the Cyrenaics. Cynic succession. The proper 
description of the tenets of both schools comes under the Summum 
Bonum. The Cynic Ideal was the minimum of wants, and their 
self-denial was compensated by exemption from fear, and by pride 
of superiority. TheCyrenaic x^bistippus : — Was the first to main- 
tain that the summum bonum is Pleasure and the absence of Pain. 
Future Pleasures and Pains taken into the account. His Psych- 
ology of Pleasure and pain ... ... ... ... ... 470 

Aristotle. Abstract of the Mcomachean Ethics :— ... ...477 

Book First. The Chief Good, or Highest End of human endeavours. 
Great differences of opinion as to the nature of Happiness. The 
Platonic Idea of the Good criticised. The Highest End an end- 
in-itself. Virtue referable to the special work of man ; growing 
out of his mental capacity. External conditions necessary to 
virtue and happiness. The Soul subdivided into parts, each 
having its characteristic virtue or excellence ... ... *&. 



CONTENTS. XXIX 

Page. 

Book Second. Definition and classification of the Moral virtues. 
Virtue the result of Habit. Doctrine of the Mean. The test of 
virtue to feel no pain. Virtue defined (genus) an acquirement or 
a State, (differentia) a Mean between extremes. Rules for hitting 
the Mean ... .,. .... ... ..... ... 481 

Book Third. The Voluntary and Involuntary. Deliberate Prefe- 
rence. Virtue and Vice are voluntary. The virtues in detail : — 
Courage [Self-sacrifice implied in Courage], Temperance ... 485 

Book Fourth. Liberality. Magnificence. Magnanimity. Mild- 
ness. Good-breeding. Modesty ... ... ... ... 490 

Book Fifth. Justice : — Universal Justice includes all virtue. Par- 
ticular Justice is of two kinds, Distributive and Corrective ... 493 

Book Sixth. Intellectual Excellences, or Virtues of the Intellect. 
The Rational part of the Soul embraces the Scientific and the De- 
liberative functions. Science deals with the necessary. Prudence 
or the Practical Reason ; its aims and requisites. In virtue, good 
dispositions must be accompanied with Prudence ... ... 495 

Book Seventh. Gradations of moral strength and moral weakness; 
Continence and Incontinence .. ... ... ... 500 

Books Eighth and Ninth. Friendship : —Grounds of Friendship. 
Varieties of Friendship, corresponding to different objects of 
liking. Friendship between the virtuous is alone perfect. A 
settled habit, not a mere passion. Equality in friendship. Poli- 
tical friendships. Explanation of the family affections. Rule of 
reciprocity of services. Conflicting obligations. Cessation of friend- 
ships. Goodwill. Love felt by benefactors. Self-love. Does 
the happy man need friends ? ... ... ... ... 502 

Book Tenth. Pleasure : — Theories of Pleasure — Eudoxus, Speu- 
sippus, Plato. Pleasure is not The Good. Pleasure defined. The 
pleasures of Intellect. Nature of the Good or Happiness resumed. 
Perfect happiness found only in the philosophical life ; second to 
which is the active social life of the good citizen. Happiness of 
the gods. Transition from Ethics to Politics ... t .. 506 

The Stoics. The succession of Stoical philosophers. Theological 
Doctrines of the Stoics : — The Divine Government ; human beings 
must rise to the comprehension of Universal Law ; the soul at death 
absorbed into the divine essence ; argument from Design. Psycho- 
logy : — Theory of Pleasure and Pain ; theory of the Will. Doc- 
trine of Happiness or the Good : — Pain no evil ; discipline of 
endurance — Apathy. Theory of Virtue : — Subordination of self 
to the larger interests; their view of active Beneficence; the 
Stoical paradoxes ; the idea of Duty ; consciousness of Self- im- 
provement ... ... ... ... ... ... 513 

Epicurus. Life and writings. His successors. Virtue and vice 
referred by him to Pleasures and Pains calculated by Reason. 
Freedom from pain the primary object. Regulation of desires. 
Pleasure good if not leading to pain. Bodily feeling the founda- 
tion of sensibility. Mental feelings contain memory and hope. 
The greatest miseries are from the delusions of hope, and from the 
torments of fear. Fear of Death and Fear of the Gods. Relations 
with others ; Justice and Friendship — both based on reciprocity. 
Virtue and Happiness inseparable. Epicureanism the type of all 
systems grounded on enlightened self-interest ... ... 525 



XXX CONTENTS. 



Page. 



The Neo-Platonists. The Moral End to be attained through an 
intellectual regimen. The soul being debased by its connexion 
with matter, the aim of human action is to regain the spiritual life. 
The first step is the practice of the cardinal virtues : the next the 
purifying virtues. Happiness is the undisturbed life of contempla- 
tion. Correspondence of the Ethical, with the Metaphysical, 
scheme .. ... ... ... ... ... ... 535 

Scholastic Ethics. Abaelard : — Lays great stress on the sub- 
jective element in morality ; highest human good, love to God ; 
actions judged by intention, and intention by conscience. St. 
Bernard : — Two degrees of virtue, Humanity and Love. John 
of Salisbury :■ — Combines philosophy and theology ; doctrine of 
Happiness ; the lower and higher desires. Alexander of Hales. 
Bona ventura. Albertus Magnus. Aquinas: — Aristotelian 
mode of enquiry as to the end ; God the highest good ; true happi- 
ness lies in the self-sufficing theoretic intelligence; virtue ; divi- 
sion of the virtues ... ... ... ... ... 537 

Hobbes. (Abstract of the Ethical part of Leviathan). Constitu- 
ents of man's nature.- The Good. Pleasure. The simple pas- 
sions. Theory of the Will. Good and Evil. Conscience. 
Virtue. Position of Ethics in the Sciences. Power, Worth, 
Dignity.. Happiness a perpetual progress ; consequences of the 
restlessness of desire. Natural state of mankind ; a state of emnity 
and war. Necessity of articles of peace, called Laws of Nature. 
Law defined. Eights ; Kenunciation of rights ; Contract ; Merit. 
Justice. Laws of Gratitude, Complaisance, Pardon upon repent- 
ance. Laws against Cruelty, Contumely, Pride, Arrogance. 
Laws of Nature, how far binding. Summary ... ... 543 

Cumberland; Standard of Moral Good summed up in Benevolence. 
The moral faculty is the Eeason, apprehending the Nature of 
Things. Innate Ideas an insufficient foundation. Will. Dis- 
interested action. Happiness. Moral Code, the common good 
of all rational beings. Obligations in respect of giving and 
of receiving. Politics. Religion ... ... ... ... 556 

Cudworth. Moral Good and Evil cannot be arbitrary. The mind 
has a power of Intellection, above Sense, for aiming at the eternal 1 
and immutable verities ... ... ... ... ... 560 

Clarke. The eternal Fitness and Unfitness of Things determine 
Justice, Equity, Goodness and Truth, and lay corresponding 
obligations upon reasonable creatures. The sanction of Rewards 
and Punishments secondary and additional. Our Duties ... 562 

Wollaston. Resolves good and evil into Truth and Falsehood ... 566 

Locke. Arguments against Innate Practical Principles. Freedom 
of the Will. Moral Rules grounded in Law ... ... ... ib* 

Butler. Characteristics of our Moral Perceptions. Disinterested 
Benevolence a fact of our constitutions. Our passions and affec- 
tions do not aim at self as their immediate end. The Supremacy 
of Conscience established from our moral nature. Meanings of 
Nature. Benevolence not ultimately at variance with Self-Love 573 

IIutcheson. Primary feelings of the mind. Finer perceptions — 
Beauty, Sympathy, the Moral Sense, Social feelings ; the benevo- 
lent order of the world suggesting Natural Religion. Order or 
subordination of the feelings as Motives ; position of Benevolence.. 
The Moral Faculty distinct and independent. Confirmation of the 



CONTENTS. XXXI 

Page* 
doctrine from the Sense of Honour. Happiness. The tempers and 
characters bearing on happiness. Duties to God. Circumstances 
affecting the moral good or evil of actions. Rights and Laws ... 580 
Mandeville. Virtue supported solely by self-interest.. Compassion 
resolvable into self. Pride an important source of moral virtue. 
Private vices, public benefits. Origin of society .., ... 593 

Hume. Question whether Reason or Sentiment be the foundation 
of morals. The esteem for Benevolence shows that Utility % 

enters into virtue. Proofs that Justice is founded solely on Utility. 
Political Society has utility Jfor its end. The Laws. Why Utility 
pleases. Qualities useful to ourselves. Qualities agreeable (1) to 
ourselves, and (2) to others. Obligation. The respective share of 
Reason and of Sentiment in moral approbation. Benevolence not 
resolvable into Self-Love .. ... ... ... M 598 

Price. The distinctions of Right and Wrong are perceived by the 
Understanding. The Beauty and Deformity of Actions. The 
feelings have some part in our moral discrimination. Self- Love 
and Benevolence. Good and ill Desert. Obligation. Divisions of 
Virtue. Intention as an element in virtuous action. Estimate of 
degrees of Virtue and Vice ... ... ... ... .». 610 

Adam Smith. Illustration of the workings of Sympathy. Mutual 
sympathy. The Amiable and the Respectable Virtues, flow 
far the several passions are consistent with Propriety. Influences 
of prosperity and adversity on moral judgments. The Sense of 
Merit and Demerit. Self-approbation. Love of Praise and of 
Praise-wortbiness. Influence and authority of Conscience. Self- 
partiality ; corrected by the use of General Rules. Connexion of 
Utility with Moral Approbation. Influence of Custom on the 
Moral Sentiments. Character of Virtue. Self-command. Opinion 
regarding the theory of the Moral Sense .. ... ... 619 

Hartley. Account of Disinterestedness. The Moral Sense a pro- 
duct of Association ... ... ... ... ... 633 

Ferguson. (Note) ... ... ... ... ... 635 

Reld. Duty not to be resolved into Interest. Conscience an origi- 
nal power of the mind. Axiomatic first principles of Morals. Ob- 
jections to the theory of Utility ... ... ... ... ib. 

Stewart. The Moral Faculty an original power. Criticism of 
opposing views, Moral Obligation : connexion with Religion. 
Duties. Happiness: classification of pleasures ... ... 639 

Brown. Moral approbation a simple emotion of the mind. Univer- 
sality of moral distinctions. Objections to the theory of Utility, 
Disinterested sentiment ... ... ... ... ... 646 

Paley. The Moral Sense not intuitive. Happiness. Virtue : its 
definition. Moral Obligation resolved into the command of God. 
Utility a criterion of the Divine Will. Utility requires us to 
consider general consequences. Rights. Duties ... ... 651 

Bentham. Utility the sole foundation of Morals. Principles ad- 
verse to Utility. The Four Sanctions of Right. Comparative 
estimate of Pleasures and Pains. Classification of Pleasures and 
Pains, Merit and Demerit. Pleasures and pains viewed as 
Motives ; some motives are Social or tutelary, others Dissocial or 
Self-regarding. Dispositions. The consequences of a mischievous 
act. Punishment. Private Ethics (Prudence) and Legislation 
distinguished; their respective spheres ... ... ... 659 



XXX11 CONTENTS. 

Page. 
Mackintosh. Universality of Moral Distinctions. Antithesis of 
Reason and Passion. It is not virtuous aots but virtuous disposi- 
tions that outweigh the pains of self-sacrifice. | The moral senti- 
ments have for their objects Dispositions. Utility. Development 
of Conscience through Association ; the constituents are Gratitude, 
Sympathy, Resentment and Shame, together with Education. 
Religion must presuppose Morality. Objections to Utility criti- 
cised. Duties to ourselves, an improper expression. Reference of 
moral sentiments to the "Will ... ... ... ... 670 

James Mill. Primary constituents of the Moral Faculty — 
pleasurable and painful sensations. The Causes of these sensa- 
tions. The Ideas of them, and of their causes. Hope, Fear ; 
Love, Joy ; Hatred, Aversion. Remote causes of pleasures and 
pains — Wealth, Power, Dignity, and their opposites. Affections 
towards our fellow-creatures — Friendship, Kindness, &c. Motives. 
Dispositions. Applications to the virtue of Prudence. Justice — 
by what motives supported. Beneficence. Importance, in moral 
training, of Praise and Blame, and their associations ; the Moral 
Sanction. Derivation of Disinterested Feelings ... ... 679 

Austin. Laws defined and classified. The Divine Laws ; how are 
we to know the Divine Will? Utility the sole criterion. Objec- 
tions to Utility. Criticism of the theory of a Moral Sense. Pre- 
vailing misconceptions as to Utility. Nature of Law resumed and 
illustrated. Impropriety of the term * law' as applied to the opera- 
tions of Nature ... ... ... ... ... ... 685 

Whewell. Opposing schemes of Morality. Proposal to reconcile 
them. There are some actions Universally approved. A Supreme 
Rule of Right to be arrived at by combining partial rules : these 
are obtained from the nature of our faculties. The rule of Speech 
is Truth ; Property supposes Justice ; the Affections indicate 
Humanity. It is a self-evident maxim that the Lower parts of our 
nature are governed by the Higher. Classification of Springs of 
Action. Disinterestedness. Classification of Moral Rules. Divi- 
sion of Rights ... ... .., ... ... ... 692 

Ferries,. Question of the Moral Sense : errors on both sides. 
Sympathy passes beyond feeling, and takes in Thought or self- 
consciousness. Happiness has two ends — the maintenance of 
man's Rational nature, and Pleasure ... ... ,.. 698 

Mansel. The conceptions of Right and Wrong are sui generis. 
The moral law can have no authority unless emanating from a 
lawgiver. The Standard is the moral nature, and not the arbitrary 
will, of God ... ... ... ... .„ ... 700 

John Stuart Mill. Explanation of what Utilitarianism consists 
in. Reply to objections against setting up Happiness as the 
Ethical end. Ultimate Sanction of the principle of Utility : the 
External and Internal sanctions ; Conscience how made up. The 
sort of Proof that Utility is susceptible of:— the evidence that 
happiness is desirable, is that men desire it ; it is consistent with 
Utility that virtue should be desired for itself. Connexion be- 
tween Justice and Utility : — meanings of Justice ; essentially 
grounded in Law ; the sentiments that support Justice, are Self- 
defence, and Sympathy ; Justice owes its paramount character to 
the essential of Security; there are no immutable maxims of 
Justice ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 702 



CONTENTS. XXXlll 

Page. 
Bailey. Facts of the human constitution that give origin to moral 
phenomena : — susceptibility to pleasure and pain, and to the causes 
of them ; reciprocation of these ; our expecting reciprocation from 
others ; sympathy. Consideration of our feelings in regard to 
actions done to us by others. Our feelings as spectators of actions 
done to others by others. Actions done to ourselves by others. 
The different cases combine to modify each other. Explanation 
of the discrepancies of the moral sentiment in different communi- 
ties. The consequences of actions the ouly criterion for rectifying 
the diversities. Objections to the happiness-test. The term 
Utility unsuitable. Disputes as to the origin of moral sentiment 
in Reason or in a Moral Sense. ... ... ... ... 714 

Spencer. Happiness the ultimate, but not the proximate, end. 
Moral Science a deduction from the laws of life and the conditions 
of existence. There have been, and still are, developing in the 
race, certain fundamental Moral Intuitions. The Expediency- 
Morality is transitional. Reference to the general theory of Evo- 
lution ... •" ... ... i ... ... ... 721 

Kant. Distinguishes between the empirical and the rational mode 
of treating Ethics. Nothing properly good, except Will. Sub- 
jection of Will to Reason. An action done from natural incli- 
nation is worthless morally. Duty is respect for Law ; con- 
formity to Law is the one principle of volition. Moral Law 
not ascertainable empirically, it must originate a priori in pure 
(practical) Reason. The Hypothetical and Categorical Impera- 
tives. Imperative of Prudence. Imperative of Morality. The 
formula of Morality. The ends of Morality. The Rational nature 
of man is an end-in-itself. The Will the source of its own laws 
— the Autonomy of the Will. The Reason of Ends. Morality 
alone has intrinsic Worth or Dignity. Principles founded on the 
Heteronomy of the Will — Happiness, Perfection. Duty legiti- 
mized by the conception of the Freedom of the Will, properly 
understood. Postulates of the pure Practical Reason — Freedom, 
Immortality, God. Summary ... ... ... ... 725 

Cousin. Analysis of the sentiments aroused in us by human 
actions. The Moral Sentiment made up of a variety of moral 
judgments — Good and Evil, Obligation, Liberty, Merit and De- 
merit. Virtue brings Happiness. Moral Satisfaction and Re- 
morse. The Law of Duty is conformity to Reason, The charac- 
teristic of Reason is Universality. Classification of Duties : — 
Duties to Self; to Others — Truth, Justice, Charity. Application 
to Politics ... ... ... ... ... ... 740 

Jouffroy. Each creature has a special nature, and a special end. 
Man has certain primary passions to be satisfied. Secondary 
passions — the Useful, the Good, Happiness. All the faculties con- 
trolled by the Reason. The End of Interest. End of Universal 
Order. Morality the expression of divine thought; identified 
with the beautiful and the true. The moral law and self-interest 
coincide. Boundaries of the three states — Passion, Egoism, Moral 
determination , j ... ... ... ... 746 



XXXIV CONTENTS. 



APPENDIX. 

A. — History of Nominalism and Realism . Page, 

The controversy on Universals first obtained its place through So- 
krates and Plato. Earliest germs in the doctrines of Parmenides 
and of Heracleitus ... ... ... ... ... 1 

Sokrates. His manner of life, and method. Search for the mean- 
ings of universal terms ... ... ... ... ... 2 

Plato. Theory of Ideas (in Kratylus). Timceus; Distinction of 
the Transient and the Permanent, the one perceived by Sense, the 
other by Intelligence ; the intelligent or cogitable element — the 
Ideas, prior in time and in order. Phcedrus : Pre- existence of the 
Ideas. Phcedon : Sense erroneous and can give only Opinion ; it 
is only the Cogitant mind, disengaging itself from the body, that 
attains the contemplation of Universals, the only eternal realities. 
Republic : iteration of the contrast between Sensible Particulars 
and Cogitable Universals ; Idea of the Good. Thecetetus : the 
Particulars, although distinct from, yet participate in, the Univer- 
sals, and thus become partially existent and cognizable. In these 
views is given the first statement of Eealism. In the dialogues — 
Sophistes and Parmenides — Plato, in his usual dialectical manner, 
sets forth the objections to the theory of Ideas : these objections 
are no where answered by him ... ... ... " ... A 

Aristotle. Enters his protest against separating Universals from 
Particulars. Advances a series of objections against the Platonic 
Ideas. The Sensible Particular alone has full reality. The Uni- 
versals exist as predicates, or concomitants, of the Particulars. 
The Categories ... ... ... ... ... ... 13 

The Stoics. Their alteration of the Categories ... ... 21 

Plotlnus. Falls back upon Platonism. The Cogitables are the 
only realities. The Idea of the Good the highest of all ... 22 

Porphyry. Vindication of the Categories. His doubts as to the 
separate existence of Genera and Species ... ... ... ib. 

Scotus Erigena. A Christian Platonist with Aristotelian ideas. 
Maintained that reality exists only in the Cogitable or Incorporeal 
Universal. The first start of Scholastic Realism ... ... 23 

Anselm and Roscellin. Debated the question as bearing on the 
Trinity. Rise of designations Nominalist and Realist. Abaelard. 
Aquinas. Supports the Aristotelian doctrine, with a qualification 
as to the ideas in the Divine Mind. Duns Scotus ... ... 24 

Ockham. Associated with the downfall of Scholasticism. Univer- 
sals have no existence but in the mind. Nominalism from his 
time in the ascendant. After Descartes, the question fell into a 
second rank ... ... ... ... ... ... 25 

Hojbbes. The most outspoken representative of extreme Nominalism 26 

Locke. General terms the signs of general ideas ... ... 27 

Berkeley. Denies the power of conceiving any property in the ab- 
stract ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 28 

Hume. Abstract ideas are in themselves individual ... ... ib. 

Reid. General names must imply general conceptions. We 
may disjoin, in our conception, attributes inseparable in nature 29 

Stewart. Abstraction as exemplified in Geometry and Algebra ib. 



CONTENTS. . XXXV 

Page. 
Brown. A general word designates certain particulars, together 

with the fact of their resemblance ... ... ... ... 30 

Hamilton. Considers both parties misled by the ambiguity of the 

terms. Expresses Nominalism with exactness, but admits a form 

of Conceptualism ... ... ... ... -•• ••• 31 

James Mill. A general term is associated with a multitude of 

particulars ; the idea complex and indistinct, but not unintelligible ib. 
Bailey. The mental conceptions the same for proper names and for 

general names .... «*. <-. ... ••• ... 32 

B. — The Origin of Knowledge — Experience and Intuition* 

Plato. The doctrine of Reminiscence .„. ... ... ... 33 

Aristotle. Did not regard the notions of Cause, Substance, &c. as 
Intuitions. Common Sense belongs to the region of Opinion, 
and not to Science or Cognition ; and includes the provinces of 
Khetoric and Dialectic — the matters generally received among men. 
The Topica. The principles of Science .: some special to the seve- 
ral sciences ; others common to all sciences — the First Philosophy 
or Ontology. Demonstration must end in principles that are in- 
demonstrable. These highest principles are not intuitive ; they 
are the growth of the higher human faculties ; their truth is as- 
certained by Induction. Relation to Intellect or Nous. Prin- 
ciples of the First Philosophy — the Maxim of Contradiction, and 
the Maxim of Excluded Middle. His vindication of those maxims 
consists in an appeal to Induction ... ., ... ... ib. 

The Schoolmen. Opposing views were held. The question be- 
came prominent at the close of the scholastic period. ... ... 49 

Descartes. First position — Thought implies Existence. The idea 
of Perfection involves a perfect Deity. The veracity of God war- 
rants the Existence of Matter. Mind a thinking substance, Body 
an extended substance. His Deductive system founded on self- 
evident truths. Examples of Intuitions ... ... ... ib. 

Arnauld. Distinguishes between Image and Idea. There are 
simple ideas not arising from Sense ... ... ... 51 

Cudworth. Sense and Cognition. Ideas of Cognition ... 52 

Herbert of Cherbury. What is accepted by all men must be 
true. The Common Notions are Instinctive. Their characters ib. 

Locke. His replies- to the arguments for Innate Ideas : — Argument 
from Universality. That the propositions, as soon as heard, are as- 
sented to. Opposing considerations : — The maxims are not known 
to children ; they appear least in savages, and in the illiterate. 
Examination of some alleged innate ideas ... ... ... 53 

Leibnitz. Charges Locke with overlooking the distinction between 
truths of fact and necessary truths. The Intellect itself is innate. 
Examples of necessary principles. Particular experiences cannot 
impart universality. The mode of pre-existence of the innate ideas 56 

Kant. His position as between the opposing schools. Maintained 
the existence of a priori or Innate Principles. Examples from 
Mathematics. The native elements are Forms, experience sup- 
plying the Matter. I. — Forms of Intuition — Space and Time. 
II. — Categories of the Understanding — Unity, Plurality, Univer- 
sality, Reality, Negation, Limitation, Substantiality, Causality, 
Reciprocal action, Possibility, Existence, Necessity. III. — Ideas 
of the Reason— the Soul, the World, God ... ... ... 58 



XXXVI CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Buffier. His anticipation of Eeid. Defines Common Sense. 
Enumeration of First Truths ... ... ... ... 62 

Eeid. Common Sense is the judgment of sound minds generally. 
Principles of Contingent Truth. The Principles of Necessary 
Truth -.—Grammar, Logic, Mathematics, Taste, Morals, Meta- 
physics, &c. ... ... ... ... ... ... 63 

Stewart. Theory of Axioms, Definitions, and Mathematical De- 
monstration ... ... .... ..» ... ... 65 

Hamilton. Common Sense another name for the final appeal to 
Consciousness. Criteria of the principles of Common Sense. 
Meanings of Necessity. Law of the Conditioned.. Applied to 
Causality and to Substance ... ... ... ... 67 

J. S. Mill. The nature of the certainty of mathematical truths. 
Keply to the arguments in favour of the a priori foundation of the 
mathematical axioms. Discussion of the test of inconceivableness 
of the opposites. Logical basis of Arithmetic and Algebra* Ex- 
amination of Mr. Spencer's theory of the axioms .... ... 69 

Mansel. Different kinds of N ecessity : — Mathematical necessity : 
the axioms of Geometry ; Arithmetic. Metaphysical Necessity. 
Substance; Causality. Logical Necessity. Moral Necessity ... 73 

C. — On Happiness* 

Enumeration of primary Pleasures and Pains. Important distinc- 
tions among pleasures and pains. Happiness as affected by the 
principle of Relativity. Health. Activity, or Occupation. 
Knowledge. Education. Individuality. Wealth. Virtue, 
or Duty. Religion. Formation of a Plan of Life, or Method 78 

D. — Classifications of the Mind. 

The Intellectual Powers. Aquinas. Reid. Stewart. Brown. 
Hamilton. Bailey ... ... ... ... ... 88 

The Emotions. Reid. Stewart. Brown. Hamilton. Spencer. 
Kant. Herbert. Schleidler ... ... ... ... 89 

The Laws or Association. Aristotle. Ludovicus Vives. 
Hobbes. Locke. Hume. Gerard. Beattie. Hartley. James 
Mill. Stewart. Brown. Hamilton ... ... ... 91 

E. — Meanings of Certain Terms. 

Consciousness. — As mental life on the whole. As the subjective 
life more especially. View that Consciousness, as a whole, is 
based on knowing ... ... ... ... ... 93 

Sensation. Expresses various contrasting phenomena ... 94 

Presentation and Representation ... ... ... 95 

Personal Identity. Identity in living beings involves unbroken 
continuity. Two views of Personal Identity : (1) a Persistent 
Substance underlying consciousness ; (2) the Sequence of con- 
scious states. Nature of our belief in Memory ... .,.96 

Substance. Every property of a thing may be called an Attribute, 
and the question arises what is the Substance ? Two alter- 
natives : — (1) an unknowable substratum ; (2) the reservation of 
the fundamental or essential property, as the Substance. Substance 
of Matter : of Mind. The total of any concrete may be held as 
the subject of the various individual attributes. The questions of 
Substance and Personal Identity in great part the same .. 98 



INTEODUCTION, 



CHAPTER I. 

DEFINITION AND DIVISIONS OF MIND. 

1. Human Knowledge, Experience, or Consciousness, 
falls under two great departments ; popularly, they are 
called Matter and Mind ; philosophers, farther, employ the 
terms External World and Internal World, Not-Self or 
Non-Ego and Self or Ego ; but the names Object and Sub- 
ject are to be preferred. 

The experience or consciousness of a tree, a river, a con- 
stellation, illustrates what is meant by Object. The expe- 
rience of a pleasure, a pain, a volition, a thought, comes under 
the head of Subject. 

There is nothing that we can know, or conceive of, but is 
included under one or other of these two great departments. 
They comprehend the entire universe as ascertainable by us. 

2. The department of the Object, or Object- World, is 
exactly circumscribed by one property, Extension. The 
world of Subject — -experience is devoid of this property. 

A tree or a river is said to possess extended magnitude. 
A pleasure has no length, breadth, or thickness ; it is in no 
respect an extended thing, A thought or idea may refer to ex- 
tended magnitudes, but it cannot be said to have extension in 
itself. Neither can we say that an act of the will, a desire, a 
belief, occupy dimensions in space. Hence all that comes within 
the sphere of the Subject is spoken of as the Unextended. 

3. Thus, if Mind, as commonly happens, is put for the 



2 DEFINITION AND DIVISIONS OF MIND. 

sum total of Subject-experiences, we may define it nega- 
tively by a single fact — the absence of Extension. But, as 
Object-experience is also in a sense mental, the only ac- 
count of Mind strictly admissible in scientific Psychology 
consists in specifying three properties or functions — Feel- 
ing, Will or Volition, and Thought or Intellect — through 
which all our experience, as well Objective as Subjective, 
is built up. This positive enumeration is what must stand 
for a definition. 

Feeling includes all our pleasures and pains, and certain 
modes of excitement, or of consciousness simply, that are 
neutral or indifferent as regards pleasure and pain. The 
pleasures of warmth, food, music ; the pains of fatigue, 
poverty, remorse ; the excitement of hurry and surprise, the 
supporting of a light weight, the touch of a table, the sound of 
a dog barking in the distance — are Feelings. The two lead- 
ing divisions of the feelings are commonly given as Sensations 
and Emotions. 

Will or Volition comprises all the actions of human beings 
in so far as impelled or guided by Feelings. Eating, walking, 
building, sowing, speaking — are actions performed with some 
end in view ; and ends are comprised in the gaining of plea- 
sure or the avoiding of pain. Actions not prompted by feel- 
ings are not voluntary. Such are the powers of nature — wind, 
gravity, electricity, &c; so also the organic functions of breath- 
ing, circulation, and the movements of the intestines. 

Thought, Intellect, Intelligence or Cognition includes the 
powers known as Perception, Memory, Conception, Abstrac- 
tion, Heason, Judgment, and Imagination. It is analyzed, as 
will be seen, into three functions, called Discrimination or 
Consciousness of Difference, Similarity or Consciousness of 
Agreement, and Retentiveness or Memory. 

The mind can seldom operate exclusively in any one of 
these three modes. A Feeling is apt to be accompanied more 
or less by Will and by Thought. When we are pleased, 
our will is moved for continuance or increase of the pleasure 
(Will) ; we at the same time discriminate and identify the 
pleasure, and have it impressed on the memory (Thought). 
(Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 188.) 

Thus the Definition is also a Division of the Mind ; that 
is, a classification of its leading or fundamental attributes. 

We may advert to some of the previous modes of defining and 



CLASSIFICATIONS OF MIND. 3 

dividing the Mind. Eeid says, c By the mind of a man, we under- 
stand that in him which thinks, remembers, reasons, wills : ' a 
definition by means of a division at once defective and redundant ; 
the defect hes in the absence of Feeling ; the redundancy in the 
addition of 'remember' and 'reason' to the comprehensive word 
' think.' 

Eeid's formal classification in expounding the mind is into 
Intellectual Powers and Active Powers % The submerged depart- 
ment of Feeling will be found partly mixed up with the Intellectual 
Powers, wherein are included the Senses and the Emotions of 
Taste, and partly treated of among the Active Powers, which com- 
prise the exposition of the benevolent and the malevolent affections. 

Dr. Thomas Brown, displeased with the mode of applying the 
term 'Active' in the above division, went into the other extreme, 
and brought forward a classification where Feeling seems entirely 
to overlie the region of Volition. He divides mental states into 
external affections and internal affections. By external affections he 
means the feelings we have by the Senses, in other words Sensa- 
tion. The internal affections he subdivides into intellectual states 
of mind and emotions. His division, therefore, is tantamount to 
Sensation, Emotion, and Intellect. All the phenomena commonly 
recognized as of an active or volitional character he classes as a 
part of Emotion. 

Sir William Hamilton, in remarking on the arrangement 
followed in the writings of Professor Dugald Stewart, states his 
own view as follows :— ' If we take the Mental to the exclusion of 
Material phoenomena, that is, the phcenomena manifested through 
the medium of Self- consciousness or Reflection, they naturally 
divide themselves into three categories or primary genera ; — the 
phoenomena of Knoivledge or Cognition, — the phcenomena of Feeling 
or of Pleasure and Pain, — and the phcenomena of Conation or of 
Will and Desire.' Intelligence, Feeling, and Will are thus distinc- 
tively set forth. 

4. It is not practicable to discuss the powers of the 
mind in the exact order of the three leading attributes. 

Feeling and Volition each involve certain primary ele- 
ments, and also certain secondary or complex elements due to 
the operation of the Intellect upon the primary. For example. 
Sensation is a prima,ry department of feeling, and always 
precedes the Intellect ; while the Emotions, which are se- 
condary and derived, follow the exposition of the Intellectual 
powers. The Will is to a great extent the product of the Reten- 
tive function of Intelligence ; it is also dependent throughout 
on the Feelings ; hence it is placed last in the course of the 
exposition ; only, at an early stage, some notice is taken of its 
primary constituents. 



4 DEFINITION AND DIVISIONS OF MIND. 

The arrangement is as follows : — 

First, Feeling and Volition in the germ, together with the 
full detail of Sensation, which contains a department of Feel- 
ing, and exemplifies one of the Intellectual functions — Dis- 
crimination. The convenient title is Movement, Sense and 
Instinct. 

Secondly, The Intellect. 

Thirdly, The Emotions, completing the department of 
Feeling. 

Fourthly, The Will. 

5. Although Subject and Object (Mind and Matter) are 
the most widely opposed facts of our experience, yet there 
is, in nature, a concomitance or connexion between Mind 
and a definite Material organism for every individual. 

The nature and extent of this connexion will appear as 
we proceed ; and, afterwards, the phraseology of the proposi- 
tion will be rendered more exact. Each mind is known, by 
direct or immediate knowledge, only to itself. Other minds 
are known to us solely through the material organism. 

The physical organs related to the mental processes are : — 
I. The Brain and Nerves ; II. The Organs of Movement, or 
the Muscles ; III. The Organs of Sense ; IV. The Viscera, 
including the Alimentary Canal, the Lungs, the Heart, &c. 
The greatest intimacy of relationship is with the Brain and 
Nerves. 

It has always been a matter of difficulty to express the nature 
of this concomitance, and hence a certain mystery has attached to 
the union of mind and body. The difficulty is owing to the fact 
that we are apt to insist on some kind of local or space relationship 
between the Extended and the Unextended. When Ave think of 
connexion, it is almost always of connexion in space ; as in sup- 
posing one thing placed in the interior of another. This last 
figure is often applied to the present case. Mind is said to be in- 
ternal to, or within, the body. Descartes localized mind in the 
pineal gland ; the schoolmen debated whether the mind is all in 
the whole body, or all in every part. Such, expressions are un- 
suitable to the case. The connexion is one of dependence, but not 
properly of local union. 



CHAPTEK II. 

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 
(Summary of Results.) 

1. The Brain is the principal, although not the sole, 
organ of mind ; and its leading functions are mental. 

The proofs of this position are these : — 

(1) The physical pain of excessive mental excitement is 
localized in the head. In extreme muscular fatigue, pain is 
felt in the muscles ; irritation of the lungs is referred to the 
chest, indigestion to the stomach; and when mental exercise 
brings on acute irritation, the local seat is the head. 

(2) Injury or disease of the brain affects the mental 
powers. A blow on the head destroys consciousness ; physical 
alterations of the nervous substance (as seen after death) are 
connected with loss of speech, loss of memory, insanity, or 
some other mental deprivation or derangement. 

(3) The products of nervous waste are more abundant 
after mental excitement. These products, eliminated mainly 
by the kidneys, are the alkaline phosphates, combined in the 
triple phosphate of ammonia and magnesia. Phosphorus is 
a characteristic ingredient of the nervous substance. 

(4) There is a general connexion between size of brain 
and mental energy. In the animal series, intelligence increases 
with the development of the brain. The human brain greatly 
exceeds the animal brain ; and the most advanced races of 
men have the largest brains. Men distinguished for mental 
force have, as a general rule, brains of an unusual size. The 
average weight of the brain is 48 oz. ; the brain of Cuvier 
weighed 64 oz. Idiots commonly have small brains. 

(5) By specific experiments on the brain and nerves, it is 
shown that they are indispensable to the mental functions. 

2. The Nervous System, as a whole, is composed of 
a central mass, or lump, and a system of branching or 
ramifying threads, designated the nerves. 



6 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 

The central mass, or lump, is called the cerebro- spinal 
axis, or centre, because contained in the head and backbone, 
being a large roundish lump (in the head), united to a slender 
column or rod (in the spine). 

The nerves are the silvery threads proceeding from the 
central lump, and ramifying to all parts of the body. As 
there is a circle of action between the brain and the bodily 
organs, one-half of the nerves carry influence outwards, the 
other half inwards. 

3. The nervous substance is composed of two elements, 
described as the white matter and the grey matter. 

The white matter is made up of minute fibres. The 
grey matter contains fibres, together with small bodies, 
termed cells, or corpuscles. 

By slicing through a brain, we may observe the two kinds 
of substance. The interior mass is a pale, waxy white ; the 
circumference shows an irregular cake of ashy grey colour. 

Microscopically viewed, the two elements of the nerve sub- 
stance are (1) fibres, and (2) little bodies called cells or 
corpuscles. The white matter is made up of fibres ; the grey 
matter contains cells intermingled with fibres. 

One remarkable peculiarity of the nerve fibres is their ex- 
ceeding minuteness. Their thickness ranges from the 

T5 1 0^ n ' ™l e "go 0™ 1 ? T5.0 0^ n ? 3 0,0 0^' ^° .^ ie TOO.OOO™ 1 °* 

an inch. In a rod of nervous matter, an inch thick, there 
might be, from ten to one hundred millions of fibres. Such 
minuteness and corresponding multiplication of fibres must 
be viewed with reference to the variety and complicacy of the 
mental functions. 

A second fact is their position. This is always a completed 
connexion between the extremities of the body and the cells 
of the grey matter, or else between one cell and another of the 
central lump ; there are no loose ends. The fibres are thus a 
connecting or conducting material. 

The cells or corpuscles are rounded, pear shaped, or irregular 
little bodies, and give origin each to two or more fibres. They 
are on a corresponding scale of minuteness. They range as high 
as the 3^oth of an inch, and as low as the T2^oo^ n# ^ little 
cube of grey matter, a quarter of an inch in the side, might 
contain one hundred thousand cells. 

These corpuscles are richly supplied with blood (so are the 
nerve fibres), and are supposed to be Centres of nervous 
energy or influence, or, at all events, parts where the nervous 



FUNCTIONS OF THE SPINAL COED. 7 

energy is re-inforced. Hence the masses of grey matter are 
spoken of as constituting the Nerve Centres. 

A second function attaching to the corpuscles supplies a key 
to the plan of the brain. They are Grand Junctions or Crossings, 
where the fibres extend and multiply their connexions. The 
fibres coming from all parts of the body, enter sooner or later 
into the corpuscles of the grey substance, and, through these, 
establish forward and lateral communications with other 
fibres, which communications are required for grouping and 
co-ordinating sensations and movements in the exercise of our 
mental functions, 

4. The Central nervous mass, or Cerebro-Spinal Axis, 
is composed of parts, which may be separately viewed, and 
to which belong separate functions. 

I. The Spinal Cord is the rod or column of nervous sub- 
stance enclosed in the back-bone. It is chiefly made up of 
white matter, but contains a core of grey substance. 

The Spinal Cord is supposed to terminate at the edge of 
the hole in the skull where the column enters to join the brain. 
At this point, it is expanded both in width and in depth, and 
receives additions of grey matter. The expanded portion, 
about 1^ inch in length, is called the medulla oblongata, and 
is a body of great importance, being the centre of important 
nerves. 

The functions of the Spinal Cord are known to be these — 

First, It is the main Trunk of all the nerves distributed to 
the body generally (the head excepted). Its destruction or 
severance at any part puts an end to all communication with 
the members supplied with nerves below the point of sever- 
ance ; whence follow paralysis and loss of feeling. 

Secondly, It has the functions of a Centre ; in other words, 
it completes a circle of nervous action, so that certain move- 
ments, in answer to stimulants, can be kept up by means of it 
alone. This property is allied with the inside core of grey 
matter. A decapitated frog will draw up and throw out its 
limbs when the skin is pinched or irritated. 

Taking together the Spinal Cord and the Medulla Oblongata, 
we find that by their means a certain class of living actions 
are maintained, called automatic, and also reflex actions. These 
are involuntary actions ; they are maintained without any 
feeling, intention, or volition, on our part. They are enu- 
merated as follows : — 

(1) Movements connected with the process of Digestion. 



8 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 

The first operation upon the food in the month — the chewing 
or masticating — is voluntary, and requires the co-operation of 
the brain. When the morsel passes from the tongue into the 
bag of the throat, it is forced down the gullet by a series of 
contractions and movements which are involuntary ; we have 
no feeling of them, and no control over them. The contact of 
the food with the surface of the alimentary tube impresses 
certain nerves distributed there ; influence is conveyed to a 
nervous centre (in some part below the brain, probably the 
medulla oblongata, together with the sympathetic ganglia), 
and the response is manifested in the contracting of the mus- 
cular fibres of the alimentary tube. 

(2) The movements connected with Respiration. The 
breathing action is sustained by a power withdrawn from our 
•will, although voluntary muscles are made use of. In taking 
in breath, the lungs are expanded by the muscles of the chest ; 
in expiration, the chest is compressed, and the air forced 
out, by the abdominal muscles. The medulla oblongata is the 
centre for sustaining this process. 

The acts of coughing and sneezing are reflex acts, operated 
through the lungs. The irritation of the very sensitive sur- 
faces of the throat and bronchial tubes, and of the lining 
membrane of the nose, originates, through the medulla ob- 
longata, a powerful discharge of nervous force to the expira- 
tory muscles, and the air is forced out with explosive violence. 
Sucking in infants is a purely reflex act. 

(3) Certain reflex movements are connected with the 
Eyes. The act of winlring is stimulated by the contact of the 
eye with the inner surface of the upper eyelid, and serves to 
distribute the tears, or eye-wash, and clean the ball. There is 
also a reflex action of the light in opening and closing the 
pupil of the eye. 

(4) There is a tendency, of a purely reflex nature, to 
move the muscles of any part, by a stimulus specially applied 
to that part. In the decapitated frog, the pinching of a foot 
leads to the retractation of that foot. An object placed in the 
open hand of any one asleep, stimulates the closure of the hand. 
Touching the cheek of a child makes it laugh. In tasting any- 
thing, the sensation, while awakening a general expression of 
feeling, more especially excites the muscles of the mouth. The 
same applies to smell ; a bad odour produces a contortion of 
the nose. In these effects of the more special senses, the in- 
fluence may not be limited to the spinal cord, but it illustrates 
the kind of reflex action referred to, an action which the cord 



FUNCTIONS OF THE CEREBRUM. 9 

is capable of sustaining. This whole class has sometimes been 
called sensori-motor actions. 

(5) The effect denominated the tension, tone, or tonicity 
of the muscles. It is a fact, that in the profoundest slumber 
there is still a certain degree of contraction in the muscles ; 
only after death are they wholly relaxed. Now, experi- 
ments seem to show that this remaining contraction is 
maintained through the agency of the spinal cord ; it disap- 
pears with the destruction of the cord. 

II. The Brain, or Encephalon, is the rounded or oval lump 
of nervous matter filling the cavity of the skull. It is a com- 
plex mass, but there are certain recognized divisions, with 
probable difference of function. 

Commencing from below, and continuous with the Spinal 
cord, is the Medulla Oblongata, which has been already noticed. 

Next is the Pons Varolii, or ring-like protuberance, so 
called because it embraces like a ring the main stem of the 
brain, continued upwards from the medulla oblongata. It 
contains white, or fibrous matter, running partly up and down, 
and partly in a transverse direction, with diffused grey mat- 
ter. As regards the white portion, it serves as a track of 
communication from below upwards, and from one half of the 
cerebellum (which adjoins it) to the other half. As regards 
the grey matter, it must perform some of the functions of a 
centre, in reflecting and multiplying nervous communications. 
No more special explanation can be given of its functions. 

The Cerebral Hemispheres, sometimes called the brain pro- 
per, constitute the highest and by far the largest part of the 
human brain. This mass is egg-shaped, but with a flattened 
base ; the big end of the egg being behind. There is a com- 
plete division into two halves, right and left, by a deep fissure 
all round, leaving only a connecting band of white matter. 
The surface is not plain, but moulded into numerous smooth 
and tortuous eminences, called convolutions, which are sepa- 
rated by furrows of considerable, though variable depth. The 
convoluted surface consists of a cake of grey matter, some- 
what less than half an inch thick, and very much extended by 
the convoluted arrangement. Inside of this cake, the hemi- 
spheres are .made up of white matter, with the exception of 
certain small enclosed masses, which contain considerable por- 
tions of grey matter. 

These last-named bodies, called the lesser grey centres of the 
brain, are regarded as the medium of connexion between the 
hemispheres above, and the great stem below. Probably in 



10 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 

them occurs that multiplication of fibres, necessary to the 
enormous expansion of the white matter of the hemispheres. 
Two of these bodies are usually named together, the corpora 
striata and thalami optici, as being closely conjoined in the 
heart of the white substance of the hemispheres ; through 
them most of the ascending fibres of the main stem spread out 
into the hemispheres. They contain a large amount of grey 
matter. A third mass, the corpora quadrigemina, or quadruple 
bodies, is more detached, and lies behind, between the cere- 
brum and the cerebellum. This centre is closely connected 
with the optic nerve, and has important functions relating to 
vision. In the lower vertebrata (as fishes), it assumes very 
large proportions as compared with the rest of the brain. 
Resting on the middle cleft of the four eminences, is a small 
conical body, called the pineal gland, curious as being sup- 
posed, by Descartes, to be the seat of the soul. 

The functions of the Hemispheres of the Brain, including 
the enclosed Ganglia, comprehend all, or nearly all, that is 
comprised in mind. When they are destroyed, or seriously 
injured, sensation, emotion, volition, and intelligence are sus- 
pended. Movements are still possible, but there is no evidence 
that they are accompanied with consciousness, in other words, 
with feeling and intelligence ; they are without purpose, or 
volition. 

It would be interesting, if we could assign distinct mental 
functions to different parts of this large and complicated organ; 
if we could find certain convolutions related to specific feelings, 
or to specific intellectual gifts and acquirements. This Phren- 
ology attempted, but with doubtful success. Yet, it is most 
reasonable to suppose that, the brain being constituted on a 
uniform plan, the same parts serve the same functions in 
different individuals. 

The Cerebellum, little brain, or after-brain, lies behind and 
beneath the convoluted hemispheres. It is a nearly wedge- 
shaped body, divided into two halves, with connecting white 
matter. Like the hemispheres, its outer surface is a thin cake 
of grey matter, extended, not by the convoluted arrangement, 
but by being folded into plates or laminae. The connexions 
of the cerebellum are, beneath, with a detached branch of the 
great stem, and above with the hemispheres, through the 
corpora quadrigemina ; the two halves are united laterally by 
the pons varolii. 

The functions of the Cerebellum are still under discussion. 
Certain experiments, made by Mourens, were interpreted as 



FUNCTIONS OF THE CEREBELLUM. 11 

showing that it is the centre of rhythmical and combined 
movements, such as the locomotive movements — walking, 
flying, swimming, &c. Its destruction in pigeons took away 
the power of standing, flying, walking, leaping, without 
seeming to destroy the cardinal functions of the mind, the 
powers of sensation and volition. The inference has been 
denied by Brown-Sequard, who affirms that the same inability 
of guiding and combining the movements follows the destruc- 
tion or irritation of other parts of the base of the brain. The 
two sets of observations are not inconsistent ; for, as the ner- 
vous action has to traverse a certain course or circuit, it may 
be suspended by destroying any part of the line. What seems 
to be established by the observations is, that there is a separate 
locality concerned in joining movements into harmonious or 
combined groups for executing the voluntary determinations. 



THE NERVES. 

5. The nerves are the branching or ramifying cords, pro- 
ceeding from the centres, and distributed to all parts of the 
body. 

They have been locally divided into spinal and cerebral, 
according as they emerge from the Spinal Cord, or directly 
from the Brain. This is chiefly a matter of local convenience ; 
those nerves supplying the head and face, emerge at once 
from the brain, through openings in the skull ; the rest de- 
scend in the spinal cord, and are given off, at openings be- 
tween the vertebras, higher or lower, according to their ulti- 
mate destination. 

The mode of emergence from the spinal cord is peculiar. 
At the interstices of the vertebras, a couple of branches 
emerge, for the two sides of the body. Each member of the 
couple is composed of two portions, or roots, an anterior and 
a posterior root, which at a little distance unite in a common 
stem. Tt is observed, however, that the posterior root has a 
little swelling or ganglion, containing grey substance, there 
being nothing to correspond in the anterior root. 

6. The general function of the nerves is to transmit 
influence from one part of the system to another. 

The nerves are supposed to originate nothing ; they are 
exclusively employed in carrying or conveying energy of 



12 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 

their own kind. In the final result, this energy stimulates 
muscles into action, and without it no muscle ever operates. 
But in the circles of thought, a great many nerve currents go 
their rounds, without stimulating muscles. 

7. The circuit of nervous action supposes two classes 
of nerves, the incarrying and the outcarrying. These are 
usually combined in the same trunk nerve. They appear 
in separation, in the double roots of the spinal nerves. 

The nervous influence does not proceed indiscriminately to 
and fro, in the same fibres ; one class is employed for convey- 
ing influence inwards, in sensation, and the other class for con- 
veying influence outwards, in volition. At the emergence of 
the spinal nerves, the classes are distinct. It was the dis- 
covery of Bell, that the posterior roots, distinguished by the 
little ganglionic swellings, are nerves purely of sensation ; the 
anterior roots, nerves purely of movement. It would be a 
point of great interest, if these pure nerves could be traced 
upwards into the nerve centres, so as to show which centres 
received sensory fibres, and which motory ; this would be the 
first ciue to a genuine Phrenology. 

The Cerebral Nerves are nearly all pure nerves. They 
were formerly divided into nine pairs, but there are, in reality, 
twelve pairs. 

The first pair is the olfactory, or nerve of Smell. The second 
is the optic, or nerve of Sight. The third, fourth, and sixth pairs 
are distributed to the muscles of the eye, and therefore determine 
its movements. The fifth pair is double, containing a motor 
branch to the muscles of the jaws, and a sensory branch connected 
with the sensibility of the face, and containing the nerve of Taste. 
The seventh pair is motor, and supplies the muscles of the face. 
The eighth is the nerve of Hearing. The ninth supplies sensory 
fibres to the tongue and throat (being a second nerve of Taste), 
and motor fibres to the muscles of the throat or pharynx. The 
tenth, called pneumo-gastric, supplies the larynx, the lungs, the 
liver, and the stomach, and is the medium of a large amount of 
sensibility. The eleventh, called spinal accessory, is motor. The 
twelfth pair (hypo- glossal) is the motor nerve of the tongue. 



BOOK I. 

MOVEMENT, SENSE, AND INSTINCT, 



CHAPTER L 

MOVEMENT, AND THE MUSCULAE FEELINGS. 

1. The Muscular Feelings agree with the sensations of 
the senses in being primary sources of feeling and of 
knowledge, localized in a peculiar set of organs ; their 
characteristic difference is summed up in the consciousness 
of active energy. 

The most fundamental contrast existing among the feelings 
of the human mind, is the contrast of Active and Passive. 
The exercise of rowing a boat gives a feeling of activity or 
energy; in a warm bath, the consciousness is of the passive 
kind. The contrast would appear to be embodied in the 
nervous system ; the outearrying nerves, together with the 
nerve centres whence they immediately proceed, being asso- 
ciated with the feelings of activity ; the incarrying nerves and 
their allied centres with sensation or passivity. 

Not only should the muscular feelings form a class apart 
from the sensations, on the ground now stated, but it is farther 
believed that their consideration should precede the account 
of the senses. The reasons are — that movement precedes sen- 
sation, and is at the outset independent of any stimulus from 
without ; and that action is a more intimate and inseparable 
property of our constitution than any of our sensations, and in 
fact enters as a component part into every one of the senses, 
giving them the character of compounds, while itself is a simple 
and elementary property. 

Of the Muscular System. — The movements of the body are per- 
formed by means of the substance called muscle, or flesh : a suh- 



14 MOVEMENT AND THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

stance composed of very fine fibres, collected into separate masses, 
of great variety of form, each mass being a muscle. The peculiar 
property of the muscular substance is contractility, or the forcible 
shrinking of the fibres under a stimulus, whereby the muscle is 
shortened, and the attached bones drawn together in consequence. 
As an example, we may mention the muscle of the calf of the leg, 
a broad round mass of flesh, ending above and below in the strong 
white fibrous substance, known as tendon, by which it is connected 
with the bones ; the upper tendon with the bone of the leg, the 
lower with the heel ; its contraction draws the heel towards the 
leg, straightening the line of leg and foot, and thus compelling 
the body to rise. 

The ultimate fibres of the muscles, the fibrils or fibrillsa (less 
than the ten-thousandth of an inch in diameter), are found to 
consist of rows of rectangular particles ; in the contraction of the 
muscle, these particles become shorter and thicker. The fibrils are 
made into bundles, about 4J0 of an inch in thickness, called 
fibres ; and the fibres are made up into larger bundles, or threads, 
which are visible to the eye, as the strings composing flesh. 

The contraction of the muscle requires the agency of the nerves, 
distributed copiously to the fibres. A farther condition of contrac- 
tile power is a supply of arterial blood. The oxidation of the sub- 
stances found in the blood is the ultimate source of muscular power; 
the oxygen, taken into the lungs, and the food, taken into the 
stomach, are the raw material of all the forces of the system. 

2. For the most part, our movements are stimulated 
through our senses, as when a flash of light or a loud sound 
makes us start ; but it is a fact of great importance, that 
movements arise without the stimulation of sensible 
objects, through some energy of the nerve centres them- 
selves, or some stimulus purely internal. This may be 
called the Spontaneous Activity of the system. 

Spontaneous Activity is the explanation of many appear- 
ances, and is an essential element of the will, on the theory 
maintained in this work. The following facts are adduced as 
both proving and illustrating the doctrine : — 

(1) The muscles never undergo an entire relaxation dur- 
ing life. Even in profound slumber, they possess a certain 
degree of tension, or rigidity. This state is called their 
c tonicity,' or tonic contraction. It is excited through the 
medium of the nerves. The cutting of the nerves, or the de- 
struction of the nerve centres, renders the muscles flaccid. 
The inference is, that at all times a stream of nervous energy 
flows to the muscles, irrespective of stimulation from without. 

(2 ) The permanent closure of the muscles called sphinc- 



PROOFS OF SPONTANEOUS ACTIVITY. 15 

ters, is an effect of the same nature. The lower extremity of 
the alimentary canal is kept close by a self-acting muscle ; 
if the connexion with the nerve centres is destroyed, this 
muscle is relaxed. 

(3 The operation of the involuntary muscles, as in 
breathing, the heart, and the movements of the intestine, 
shows that there is a provision for keeping up movements, in- 
dependent of the stimulus of the senses. These muscles never 
cease to ply. The only stimulation that could be assigned in 
their case is the contact of the materials propelled — the air 
in the lungs, the blood in the blood-vessels, the food in the 
stomach and bowels ; but even these contacts would fail to 
account for the first beginning of the movements. By what 
influence do we draw our first breath ? Still, what is con- 
tended for is, not the absence of internal organic influences, 
but the absence of agents operating on the external senses. 

(4) In wakening from sleep, movement often precedes 
sensation. Most commonly the first symptom of awakening 
is a general commotion of the frame, a number of spontaneous 
movements — the stretching of the limbs, the opening of the 
eyes, the expansion of the features — to which succeeds the 
revived sensibility to outward things. No decided facts have 
ever been adduced to show that a stimulation of the senses 
invariably precedes the wakening movements. We are there- 
fore led to believe that the re-animation of the system consists 
in a rush of nervous power to the moving organs, at the same 
time that the susceptibility of the senses is renewed. 

(5) The movements of infancy, of young animals gene- 
rally, and of animals distinguished for activity, are strongly 
in point. The mobility of infants is very great, and the same 
feature characterizes childhood and youth. We may attribute 
it in part to the acute sensations and emotions of early years. 
But this is not the whole explanation. When the senses are 
in no ways solicited, the youthful mobility is strongly mani- 
fested ; it seems chiefly to follow the physical circumstances 
of rest and nutrition, and is, as might be expected, most 
vehement after confinement or restraint. 

The activity of young animals in general, and of animals 
specially active (as the insect tribe), are most adequately re- 
presented on the present hypothesis. When the kitten plays 
with a worsted ball, we always attribute the overflowing ful- 
ness of moving energy to the creature's own inward stimulus, 
to which the ball merely serves for a pretext. So an active 
young hound, refreshed by sleep, or kept in confinement, 



16 MOVEMENT A.ND THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

pants for being let loose, not because of anything that attracts 
his view or kindles up his ear, but because a rush of activity 
courses through his members, rendering him uneasy till the 
confined energy has found vent in a chase or a run. "We are 
at no loss to distinguish this kind of activity from that awak- 
ened by sensation or emotion, and the distinction is accord- 
ingly recognized in the modes of interpreting the movements 
and feelings of animals. When a rider speaks of his horse as 
4 fresh,' he implies that the natural activity is undischarged, 
and pressing for vent ; the excitement caused by mixing in a 
chase or in a battle, is a totally different thing from the spon- 
taneous vehemence of a full-fed and under- worked animal. 

(G) The activity of morbid excitement may next be 
quoted. Under a peculiar state of the nervous system, move- 
ments arise without any stimulation, or in undue proportion 
to the stimulants applied. This shows incontestably, that the 
condition of the nerve centres may be such as to originate 
activity, without any concurrence of sensible agencies ; now 
if there be an unhealthy spontaneity, there may also be a 
healthy mode, as in the freshness of the young and vigorous 
animal. There are occasions when it is impossible to be still ; 
the internal fires are generating force, which we cannot re- 
press. Certain drugs, as strychnine, induce this excessive 
spontaneity, in the shape of strong convulsive erections and 
movements of the body. 

(7 ) Activity and Sensibility are not developed in equal pro- 
portions in individual character; more frequently they stand in 
an inverse proportion to each other. The strong, active, rest- 
less temperament is usually the least sensitive, the least open 
to the varying solicitations of the senses. This energetic tem- 
perament is manifestly the result of a constitutional, self- 
prompting force. There is, in many individuals, a love of 
activity for its own sake, a search after occasions for putting 
forth energy ; we may instance, the restless adventurer, the 
indefatigable traveller, the devotee of business, the lover of 
poli+icai bustle. The activity of the more susceptible natures 
is prompted by the feelings, and ceases when they are grati- 
fied ; as when a man like Wilberforce is stimulated to redress 
some flagrant wrong, and otherwise leads an inactive career. 

The Spontaneity of the system is shown in all the regions 
of muscular activity. Foremost of our muscular groupings is 
the Locomotive Apparatus, which includes the limbs, together 
with the trunk ; in energetic promptings, these organs are the 
readiest means of discharging the surplus activity ; the ex- 



.REGIONS OF SPONTANEOUS MOVEMENTS. 17 

cited animal walks, runs, flies, or gesticulates. The organs of 
Mastication form a second grouping. The Vocal Organs are an 
isolated group of great interest. The utterance of the voice 
is, on many occasions, plainly due to mere freshness of the 
organs. The morning song of the bird bursts out spontane- 
ously, although also liable to the influence of infection, and 
other external causes. Among the smaller organs, we may 
mention the Tongue, so remarkable for flexibility ; its spon- 
taneous movements occur in the play of infancy, and are of 
importance in the beginnings of articulation. 

We might illustrate the spontaneous, as contrasted with 
the stimulated discharge, in the special aptitudes of animals. 
As the battery of the torpedo becomes charged by the mere 
course of nutrition, and requires to be periodically relieved by 
being poured upon some object or other, so we may suppose 
that the jaws of the tiger, the fangs of the serpent, the spin- 
ning apparatus of the spider, require at intervals to have some 
objects to spend themselves upon. It is said that the con- 
structiveness of the bee and the beaver incontinently mani- 
fests itself, even where there is no end to be gained. 

The spontaneous activity necessarily rises and falls with the 
vigour and state of nutrition of the system ; being abundant 
in states of good health, and deficient during fatigue, hunger, 
and sickness. 



THE MUSCULAH FEELINGS. 

3. There are three classes of these : — 

First, Feelings connected with the organic condition of 
the muscles, as those arising from hurts, wounds, diseases, 
fatigue, rest, nutriment. 

Most of these affections the muscles have in common with 
the other tissues of the body ; and the appropriate place for 
expounding them will be under a subsequent head. It is 
our purpose, at this stage, to exhibit prominently the active 
side of our nature, in its contrast to the passive or receptive 
side. 

Secondly, Feelings connected with muscular action, 
including all the pleasures and pains of exercise. These 
are states peculiar to muscular activity. 

2 



IS MOVEMENT AND 'THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

Thirdly, The discriminative sensibility of muscle, or the 
consciousness that arises during the varying tension of the 
moving organs. 

'TtOli 

These are mental states of a neutral kind as regards 
pleasure and pain, but all-important as the basis of Intellect. 
The muscular feelings, like the sensations, have two charac- 
ters; one in the region of Feeling strictly so called, and de- 
cisively shown in pleasure and pain ; the other in the region 
of Intellect, and manifested in discrimination, or the con- 
sciousness of difference. The two aspects may be illustrated, 
in the sense of sight, by comparing the rainbow or a bonfire 
with a man's name or an arithmetical number. 

I. Of the Feelings of Muscular Exercise.* 

4. These are feelings proper and peculiar to the 
muscular system ; they cannot be produced in any other 
connexion. 

The first and simplest case is the dead strain, or exer- 
tion without movement. 

Physical Side. — The physical circumstances of muscular 

* There are many things to be said with reference to Feeling in 
general ; but I consider it inexpedient to introduce the whole of the 
generalities before giving a certain number of examples in the concrete. 
Accordingly, I prefer to proceed at once with the Muscular Feelings and 
Sensations in the detail, and to expound the general laws and properties 
of Feeling in a chapter introductory to the Emotions. All that is 
necessary, in the meantime, is to understand the plan followed in the 
description of the feelings ; and, with this view, a few explanatory obser- 
vations are here offered. 

All feelings have a Physical Side, or relation to our bodily organs ; 
the sensations, for example, arise on the stimulation of a special organ 
of sense ; and both sensations and emotions have a characteristic outward 
display, or expression, which indicates their existence to a spectator. I 
include in the description of each feeling whatever is known of its physi- 
cal accompaniments. 

The feeling proper, or the Mental Side, has its relationships exhausted 
under the three fundamental attributes of Mind — Feeling, Volition, and 
Intellect. As Feeling, it is pleasurable, painful, or neutral — its Quality ; 
it has Degree, as regards Intensity, or as regards Quantity ; and it may 
have Special characteristics besides. Farther, all feelings that are either 
pleasurable or painful are motives to the Will ; this is their Volitional 
property. Lastly, when we look to the susceptibility of being discri- 
minated, compared, and remembered, we are dealing with Intellectual 
properties, in which feelings are not necessarily identical, because agree- 
ing in other things. 



MUSCUIAR EXERCISE. — PHYSICAL SIDE. 19 

tension, so far as known, are these. There is a shrinking or 
contracting of the length of the muscle, through the shortening 
and widening of the ultimate particles that make up each fibril. 
To induce the contraction, there is required a nerve current 
from the brain, by the outgoing or motor nerves. Equally 
essential is the presence of blood : in which oxidation is going 
on, in proportion to the muscular energy produced. 

There are numerous indirect and remote consequences of 
muscular exertion. The increased consumption of oxygen 
and the production of carbonic acid give more work to the 
lungs, augmenting the breathiog action. From the same 
causes, there is a quickening also of the heart and circulation; 
to which follows a rise of animal heat throughout the body. 
Partly from the accumulation of waste products, and partly 
from the augmented flow of blood, and the increased tempera- 
ture, there is an augmentation in the eliminating function of 

The plan in its completeness may be represented thus: — 
Physical Side. 

Bodily Origin. (For Sensations chiefly). 
Bodily Diffusion, expression, or embodiment. 
Mental Side. 

Characters as Feeling. 

Quality, «*. e. } Pleasure, Pain, Indifference. 
Degree. 

As regards Intensity or acuteness. 
As regards Quantity, mass, or volume, 
Special characteristics. 
Volitional characters. 

Mode of influencing the Will, or Motives to Action. 
Intellectual characters. 

Susceptibility to Discrimination and to Agreement. 
Degree of Petainability, that is Ideal Persistence and 
Recoverability. 
It is to be remarked that, as a general rule, pleasures agree in their 
physical expression, or embodiment, and also in their mode of operating 
on the will, namely, for their continuance, increase, or renewal. In like 
manner, pains have a common expression, and a common influence in 
promoting action for their removal, abatement, or avoidance. Hence the 
iact, that a state is pleasurable or painful, carries with it these two other 
facts as a matter of course. 

Again, as regards the Intellect ; Discrimination, Agreement, and Re- 
tainability are to a certain extent proportional to the degree of the feeling, 
or the strength of the impression. This being the case, the statement 
of the degree involves the probable nature of the properties connected 
with the Intellect. Hence, in most cases, it is unnecessary to carry the 
delineation through all the particulars of the table. It is only when a 
feeling possesses any peculiarities rendering it an exception to the general 
laws of coincidence now mentioned, that the full description is called for. 
Two or three examples of the complete detail will be given. 



20 MOVEMENT A1SID THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

the skin. Moreover, the great demand for blood in the 
muscles causes it to be withdrawn from other organs, such as 
the brain and the stomach ; thus diminishing mental excite- 
ment, and interrupting for the time the digestive processes. 
Provided sufficient food is supplied, the entire effect of exer- 
cise is favourable to the animal processes ; the increased func- 
tions of the lungs, heart, and skin are good for the system 
generally ; the temporary withdrawal of blood from the 
brain, and from the stomach, prepares the way for its going 
back with renewed efficiency. Mankind have always known 
that muscular exercise, in proper time and quantity, improves 
health* 

The Expression or outward embodiment of muscular exer- 
tion is determined by the muscles engaged, and by the ten- 
dency of the rest to chime in with them, through a general 
law of the system. In so far as not completely pre-occupied 
in this way, the features and other organs of expression are 
affected according as the mental state is pleasurable or the re- 
verse. 

Mental Side. — Of Feeling proper, the first point is Quality. 
Observation shows that this is pleasurable, indifferent, or 
painful, according to the condition of the system. The 
first outburst of muscular vigour in a healthy frame, after 
rest and nourishment, is highly pleasurable. The intensity 
of the pleasure gradually subsides into indifference ; and, if 
the exercise is prolonged beyond a certain time, pain ensues. 
In ordinary manual labour there may be, at commencing in 
the morning and after meals, a certain amount of pleasure 
caused by the exercise ; but it is probable that during the 
greater part of a workman's day, the feeling of exertion is in 
most cases indifferent. If we confine ourselves to the dis- 
charge of surplus energy in muscular exertion, there can be 
no doubt that this is a considerable source of pleasure in the 
average of human beings, and doubtless also in the animal 
tribes. The fact is shown in the love of exercise for its own 
sake, or apart from the ends of productive industry, and the 

* The muscles receive principally motor, or outcarrying nerves ; they 
are not, however, destitute of sensory or incarrying fibres. It is an 
inference supported by many facts, and accepted by the generality of 
physiologists, that the feeling of exertion accompanies the outgoing nerve 
current, and does not arise, as a sensation, by the sensory fibres. The 
other feelings of muscle being of a more passive kind, and are allied 
to sensation, and seem to be connected with the ingoing currents by 
the sensitive fibres. See the whole question argued at length, * Senses 
and Intellect,' p. 92, 2nd edit. 



MUSCULAK EXERCISE. — MENTAL SIDE. 21 

preservation of health. In the case of active sports and 
amusements, there are additional sources of pleasurable ex- 
citement, but the delight in the mere bodily exertion would 
still be reckoned one ingredient in the mixture. 

As to the Degree of this pleasure, it is massive rather than 
acute. The sensibility of muscle under the dead strain is not 
very great, and becomes considerable only by multiplication 
or extent, as when a number of large muscles are powerfully 
engaged. 

We estimate pleasures directly, by comparing them in our 
consciousness, as when we decide which of two apples is the 
sweetest, and prefer one picture to another. We estimate 
them indirectly, by the amount of pain that they can subdue, 
as in restoring cheerfulness under a shock of suffering. 
Bodily exercise has a great soothing power, but not exclu- 
sively from its being a source of pleasure. It has the physical 
effect of deriving blood from the brain, so as to calm excite- 
ment, and a farther effect to be next noticed. 

The third point in the description of a mental state, con- 
sidered as Feeling, is its Speciality, apart from quality and 
degree. Now, wc have already remarked that there is a gene- 
ric difference of nature between muscular feeling proper and 
sensation proper. This radical distinction in kind is familiar 
to each person's experience, and is designated by such phrases 
as ' the sense of power,' ' the feeling of energy put forth,' ' the 
sense of resistance, ' &c. It has the peculiarity of determining 
an attitude of mind hostile to passive feeling, and to self- con- 
sciousness in every form ; in proportion as it is manifested 
we are indifferent as regards pleasure and pain ; pleasure may 
be stimulated, but will not be felt. This attitude of indifference, 
coupled with the consciousness of energy, is the ultimate mean- 
ing of what is called the Object, as opposed to the Subject, — 
the noUme, as opposed to the me. Even the pleasure of exercise 
and the pain of fatigue during exercise are not. steady, bui 
fitful and transitory feelings. It is only at intervals that we 
remit the putting forth of effort, and subjectively attend to 
the resulting pleasure or pain. 

There are thus two modes of mental indifference, or mental 
life with the absence of pleasure or pain. The one is the state of 
neutral emotion, as in mere surprise, and may be called subjective 
indifference. The other is the objective attitude, under which all 
emotion is for the moment submerged. 

The Volitional property of the pleasure, or the pain, of mus- 
cular exercise falls under the general law of the will. As 



22 MOVEMENT AND THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

pleasure, and in proportion to the degree, it works for its own 
continuance or increase. Owing to the existence of the spon- 
taneous discharge, the stimulus of pleasure is not necessary to 
begin activity, but is a co-operating cause for maintaining it 
when once begun. 

In the Intellectual point of view, a feeling is considered as 
to Discrimination (together with Agreement) and as to Retain- 
ability in the memory. These properties are so important as 
to constitute a distinct branch of the subject. I shall merely 
a^ude here to one small part of the case, namely, our recol- 
lection of states of muscular exercise regarded as pleasure, 
so as to render them an object of desire and pursuit when 
they are not actually present. This is a truly intellectual 
property of feeling. In so far as active amusements and 
sports, and occupations largely involving muscular exercise, 
are a fixed object of passionate pursuit, to that extent 
they abide in thought, or stand high in one of their intel- 
lectual aspects. 

5. As examples of the dead strain, we may mention the 
supporting of a weight, the holding on as a drag, the exer- 
tion of force, or the encounter of resistance in pressing, 
squeezing, wrestling, &c. A certain amount of accompanying 
movement does not alter the character of the situation ; as, 
for example, in slowly dragging a heavy vehicle. 

6. Exertion with movement. 

Movement developes a new mode of sensibility, which is 
more apparent as the force expended is small ; a circumstance 
rendering it likely that the special effect is associated with the 
passive sensibility of muscle. 

Physically, all that we know of the fact of movement is 
the perpetual change of the muscular tension ; there is a con- 
stantly varying and alternately remitted strain, instead of the 
pouring forth of energy in a fixed attitude. 

Mentally, the characters differ according as the move- 
ments are slow or quick. 

7. And first of slow movements. 

Under a loitering, sauntering walk, drawling tones of 
speech, solemn gestures, and dawdling occupation, there is a 
voluminous pleasurable feeling, with little energy expended. 
The two facts are mutually implicated. The sense of expended 
energy is wanting, and the attention is disengaged for the 
passive sensibility of the muscles ; so that, in fact, with the 



FEELINGS OF MOVEMENT. 23 

show of activity there is the substance of passivity. The state 
is closely allied to muscular repose, or the reaction from great 
muscular expenditure, and to the approach of sleep. Slow 
movements are of a soothing tendency ; they quiet the 
irritated nerves, and prepare the way for complete repose. 
They have a close alliance with the emotions of awe, solemnity, 
and veneration ; hence the funeral pace, the slow enunciation 
of devotional exercises, the long-drawn tones of organ music, 
are appropriated to religious worship. 

8. Movements gradually increasing or diminishing give 
rise to a still greater degree of pleasurable feeling. The 
gradual dying away of a motion is pleasurable and graceful 
in every sort of activity — in gesture, in the dance, in speech, 
and in visible movements. It is this peculiarity that seems 
to constitute the beauty of curved lines and rounded forms. 
We may explain it on the great law of the mind that connects 
all sensibility with change of impression ; in these rising and 
falling movements, there is unceasing variation of effect. 

9. Next as to quick movements. 

Movements of great rapidity, whether the energy expended 
be great or little, have a tendency to excite the nervous 
system ; they are in that respect a kind of stimulant, like a 
loud noise, or the glare of light. All the mental functions are 
quickened in consequence. It depends on circumstances, 
whether this effect is pleasurable or the opposite. If the nerv- 
ous system is fresh and vigorous, the stimulation is agreeable, 
and may end in a kind of intoxication ; in a jaded condition 
of the nerves, the effect is apt to be acutely painful and dis- 
tressing. Under excitement, there may be a third situation, 
wherein fatigue passes off in favour of a delirious pleasure, for 
which the sj^stem has afterwards to pay the cost by a pro- 
tracted depression. The ecstatic worship of antiquity, which 
consisted in wild and furious dances in honour of Bacchus and 
of Demeter, brought on a peculiar frenzy of intense enjoy- 
ment ; and something of the same kind still happens among 
the Orientals, and in a less degree with the lovers of dancing 
everywhere. The physical circumstance may be presumed to 
be a great excess of blood to the brain, the result of the pro- 
tracted stimulation. 

It appears thus, that movement, in the extreme phases of 
slowness and quickness, and not involving much exertion, 
does not represent the main fact of the consciousness of mus- 
cular energy, but certain incidental peculiarities allied more 



24 MOVEMENT AND THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

to the passive, than to the active, side of our mental constitu- 
tion. If great energy is to be put forth nnder these modes of 
movement, their incidental character will be subordinated to 
the proper consciousness of expended muscular force. 

10. A third situation connected with muscular exercise 
is improperly expressed by passive movements. 

Riding in a vehicle is the commonest instance ; carriage 
exercise is both pleasurable and wholesome. There is a gentle 
muscular stimulus, such as accompanies slow and varying 
movements, which results in voluminous passive sensibility. 
To this Dr. Arnott adds the circumstance, that the shaking of 
the body propels the blood ; and, as it can move only one way, 
the circulation is quickened. The fresh air also counts in the 
effect. Another mental influence is derived from the shifting 
scene ; the eye is regaled with novelty, without the labour of 
moving to obtain it. 

For the sensuous luxury of motion, the Americans have 
devised the rocking chair, an extension of the children's 
hobby-horse and swing. 

II. Of the Discriminative or Intellectual Sensibility of Muscle. 

11. Along with every feeling, we have a consciousness 
of degree. 

To be affected more or less, is a consequence of being 
affected at all. Even onr pleasures and pains are discriminated 
according to their intensity. To regard any feeling as differ- 
ing from another in quantity, or otherwise, is the first condition 
of intelligence, or thought ; it is the feature of distinctness, 
character, or individuality, as opposed to blank sameness or 
monotony. Not to distinguish one colour from another is a 
form of blindness ; to be more than ordinarily discriminative is 
to have a high intellectual endowment. The discriminations 
in the muscular feeling are of great moment. 

12. First, with respect to the degree of Exertion, or 
Expended Force, movement being left out of the account. 

We here go back npon the feeling of muscular exercise, 
considered not as giving pleasure or pain, which are subjective 
states, but as making up our object attitude, under which our 
consciousness is merely of the degree of expended energy. 
This state is the sense or feeling of Resistance, and is our con- 
ception of Body, and our measure of Force, Momentum, 



DISCRIMINATION OF EXPENDED FORCE. 25 

Inertia, or the Mechanical property of matter. No feeling of 
the human mind is more fundamental, more constant, or more 
worked up into complex products, than this. When a weight 
is put into the hand, we are aware of an expenditure of force ; 
when the amount is increased, we are conscious of increased 
expenditure. The delicacy of our discrimination is the small- 
ness of the addition or the subtraction that will alter our con- 
sciousness. An ordinary person can discriminate between 
39 and 40 ounces. 

The feeling of graduated resistance is brought out in en- 
countering or checking a body in motion, as in stopping a 
carriage or in obstructing another person's progress. It is 
also manifested in putting forth power to move resisting 
bodies, as in rowing a boat, digging the ground, or other 
manual exertion ; likewise in bearing burdens. "We have it 
present to us, in supporting our own body. Our varying 
experience in all these forms, consists of a varying muscular 
consciousness, a series of modes of expended energy, which 
the memory can retain, and which we can associate with 
other mental states, as with the sensations of colour, of sound, 
of contact, &c. We connect one degree of resistance with a 
small, and another with a large, optical impression, as in com- 
paring a pebble with a paving stone. 

The delicate discrimination of degrees of muscular expen- 
diture serves us in many manual operations ; for example, in 
graduating a blow, in throwing a missile to a mark, and in 
forming plastic substances to a certain consistency. 

We have a consciousness of distinctness, remarkable in its 
kind, between exertions made by different muscles ; for ex- 
ample, in the two hands. It is not the same to us that a 
pound weight is put into either hand ; if it were so, we should 
be in the proverbial situation of not knowing the right hand 
from the left. 

13. Secondly, a muscular exertion may vary in con- 
tinuance; and this variation is felt by us as different from 
variation in the intensity of the effect. 

A dead strain of unvarying amount being supposed, we 
are differently affected according to its duration. If we make 
a push lasting a quarter of a minute, and, after an interval, 
renew it for half a minute, there is a difference in the con- 
sciousness of the two efforts. The endurance implies an in- 
creased expenditure of power in a certain mode, and we are dis- 
tinctly aware of such an increase. We know also that it is 



26 MOVEMENT AND THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

not the same as an increase in the intensity of the strain. The 
two modes of increase are not only discriminated as regards 
degree, they are also felt to be different modes. The one is 
our feeling and measure of Resistance or Force, the other 
stands for a measure of Time. All impressions made on the 
mind, whether those of muscular energy, or those of the 
ordinary senses, are felt differently according as they endure 
for a longer or a shorter time. 

The estimate of continuance thus attaches to dead resist- 
ance, but not to that alone. When we put forth power to 
move, as in pulling an oar, or in lifting a weight, we are aware 
of different degrees of continuance of the movament. More- 
over, we do not confound movement with dead strain ; we are 
distinctively affected by the two modes of exercising force ; 
supposing the total amount of power expended the same, the 
consciousness of each is characteristic. 

Now Continuance of Movement expresses a different fact 
from continuance of dead strain. It is the sweep of the organ 
through space, and is, therefore, the measure of space or ex- 
tension. It is the first step, the elementary sensibility, in our 
knowledge of space. Other experiences must be combined in 
this great fundamental notion, but here we have the primary 
ingredient. 

The simplest form of muscular continuance is the sweep 
of a limb in one direction, nearly corresponding with linear 
extension (the spontaneous sweep of the arm is not a straight 
line). A greater complication of movement is involved in 
superficial extension; and a greater still, in cubical extension. 
But in the last resort, linear, superficial, and solid extension 
are to us nothing but the consciousness of continued and com- 
plicated movements, which we can associate in different groups, 
and remember among our intellectual acquisitions. A square 
foot of surface is embodied in one muscular grouping, a circle 
of three feet in diameter in another, a nine inch cube in a 
third ; these muscular groupings may be tactual, visual, or 
locomotive, one or all, as will be afterwards seen. 

14 Thirdly, as regards movements, the speed may vary ; 
and we are characteristically conscious of the variation. 

It is probable that the peculiar difference of character, 
above adverted to, between slow and quick movaments, is an 
element in our discrimination of change of speed. When we 
increase the rate of movement of the arm, we are aware not 
merely that more virtue has gone out of us, but also that the 



DISCRIMINATION OF VELOCITY OF MOVEMENT. 27 

mode is not the same as an increased strain or an increased 
continuance. This is a valuable addition to our means of 
muscular discrimination. It enables us, in the first place, to 
be directly cognizant of the important attribute of speed or 
velocity of movement, whether in ourselves or in bodies with- 
out us. It supplies, in the next place, a farther means of 
measuring extension, checking and supplemontingthat derived 
from the continuance of a uniform movement. A greater 
velocity, under one amount of continuanca, is equivalent to a 
less velocity with a greater continuance. 



CHAPTER II. 

SENSATION. 

1. A sensation is defined as the mental impression, 
feeling, or conscious state, resulting from the action of 
external things on some part of the body, called on that 
account sensitive. 

Such are the feelings caused by tastes, smells, sounds, or 
sights. They are distinguished from the feelings of energy 
expended from within (the muscular), and from the emotions, 
as fear and anger, which do not arise immediately from the 
stimulus of a sensitive surface. 

2. The Sensations are classified according to their 
bodily Organs ; hence the division into Five Senses. 

Distinctness of organ is accompanied with distinctness of 
agent, and of feeling, or consciousness. Light, as an agency, 
is distinct from sound, and the consciousness under each is 
characteristic ; we should never confound a sight with a sound. 

The common enumeration of the Five Senses is de- 
fective. 

When the senses are regarded principally as sources of 
knowledge, or the basis of intellect, the five commonly given 
are tolerably comprehensive ; but when we advert to sensation, 
in the aspect of pleasure and pain, there are serious omissions. 
Hunger, thirst, repletion, suffocation, warmth, and the variety 



23 SENSATIONS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 

of states designated by physical comfort and discomfort, are 
left out ; yet these possess the characteristics of sensation as 
above defined, having a local organ or seat, a definite agency, 
and a characteristic mode of consciousness. 

The omission is best supplied by constituting a group 
of Organic Sensations, or Sensations of Organic Life. 

In the Senses as thus made up, it is useful to remark a 
division into two classes, according to their importance in the 
operations of the Intellect. If we examine the Sensations of 
Organic Life, Taste, and Smell, we shall find that as regards 
pleasure and pain, or in the point of view of Feeling, they are 
of great consequence, but that they contribute little of the 
permanent forms and imagery employed in our Intellectual 
processes. This last function is mainly served by Touch, 
Hearing, and Sight, which may therefore be called the Intel- 
lectual Senses by pre-eminence. They are not, however, 
thereby prevented from serving the other function also, or 
from entering into the pleasures and pains of our emotional 
life. 

SENSATIONS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 

Like the senses generally, these will be classified ac- 
cording to Locality or Seat. 

Organic Muscular Feelings. 

3. The passive feelings, or sensations proper, connected 
with Muscle, are chiefly the pains of injury, and the pains 
and pleasures of fatigue and repose. 

When a muscle is cut, lacerated, or otherwise injured, or 
when seized with spasm, there is a feeling of acute pain. We 
shall describe this state in fall, as typifying, once for all, the 
class of acute physical pains. 

Physical Side. — The Bodily Origin is some destruction or 
injury of the muscular fibres, such as to irritate violently the 
imbedded nerves. 

The Bodily Diffusion, or Expression, is various and in- 
teresting to study. The features are violently contorted, and 
assume certain characteristic appearances ; the voice is excited 
to sharp utterances ; the whole body is agitated. In short, 
movements are stimulated, intense according to the pain. 



ACUTE PHYSICAL PAINS TYPIFIED. 29 

The accompaniment of sobbing shows that the involuntary 
muscles and the glands may also be affected ; which is con- 
firmed by closely observing the changes in the heart and the 
lungs, the effects on digestion, on. the skin, &c. ; all which 
changes are of the nature of depression and derangement. 

Mental Side. — As Feelings, these states are indicated by 
the name. In Quality, they are painful ; in Degree, acute or 
intense. As respects Specialities of character, we find a cer- 
tain number of discriminative names ; pains are racking, 
burning, shooting, pricking, smarting, aching, stunning ; dis- 
tinctions of importance in pathology. 

Violent pains are apt to rouse certain of the special emo- 
tions, as grief, terror, rage ; the selection depending less upon 
the nature of the pain than on the temper and circumstances 
of the individual. 

The Volitional character of an acute pain would be, accord- 
ing to the law of the Will, to stimulate efforts for relief and 
avoidance. Such is the fact, but with an important qualifica- 
tion. The operation of the will demands a certain remaining 
vigour in the active organs ; now, pain soon exhausts the 
strength ; hence the will is paralyzed by long continuance of 
the irritation. A temporary smart quickens the energies, a 
continued agony crushes them. 

Part of the expression of a sufferer is made up of postures 
aud efforts of a voluntary kind, prompted with a view to 
relief; these vary with the locality and the nature of the attack. 

The Intellectual quality of acute physical pains is compli- 
cated. Intensity of excitement is favourable to impressive- 
ness ; while in extreme degrees, the intellectual functions are 
paralyzed. These two considerations allowed for, the dis- 
crimination and the persistence of organic states are at the 
bottom of the scale of feelings. They are very inadequately 
remembered. 

People differ greatly in their effective recollection of pains, 
no less than in the memory for language or for scenery ; and 
the consequences are notable. First, the recollection of pain is 
the essential feature of preventive or precautionary volition, 
that is, Prudence. Secondly, it constitutes the basis of fellow- 
feeling, or sympathy. The Socratic doctrine that knowledge 
is virtue, might be transmuted into a profound and important 
truth, if knowledge were interpreted as the effective recollec- 
tiou of good and evil. Virtue has its sources in the retentive 
property of the Intellect ; but the subject matter of the recol- 
lection is not knowledge, but feelings. 



30 SENSATIONS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 

The special muscular pain of cramp, or spasm, may be 
separately noticed. Physically, it is the violent contraction of 
some portion of a muscle, through an irritation of the motor 
nerves. The best mode of relief is to give way to the contrac- 
tion, by relaxing the muscle to the utmost. Mentally, this is 
the species of pain named racking ; it arises from violent mus- 
cular distension. The pains of the uterus in childbirth are 
of this nature. Distressing spasms occur in the muscular 
fibres of the stomach and intestine. 

The pains of excessive fatigue are among the acute pains of 
muscle. Like spasm, they have a peculiar character, connect- 
ing them with the muscle, and not with any other tissue. 

The state of muscular repose after ordinary fatigue is one 
of our pleasurable feelings. There is a complication of physi- 
cal circumstances attending it. The blood previously accu- 
mulated in the muscular tissue, is now returning to the other 
important organs, the brain, the stomach, &c. ; while the 
muscles are remitted from further action. Both causes con- 
cur to yield pleasure, not acute, but massive. The other or- 
ganic accompaniments cannot disguise the muscle's own sen- 
sibility to the condition of repose ; the feeling is one that has 
a certain reflexion of energy : — 

Even in our ashes glow their wonted fires. 

There is, in rest after exercise, a close kinship to sleep ; as if 
a part of the fact were already realized. These pleasures are 
the reward of bodily toil and hard exercise. 

We may include under the present head what little is to 
be said on the Bones and Ligaments, whose sensibility is ex- 
clusively manifested in the shape of pain from injury or 
disease. The diseases and lacerations of the periosteum are 
intensely painful ; a blow on the shin is acute and prostrating. 
The ligaments are painful when wrenched, although not when 
cut. The tendonous part of the muscles seems to share in the 
pain of over- fatigue. The joints are the seat of painful dis- 
eases, as gout, if not also rheumatism. 



Organic Sensations of Nerve. 

4. Besides being the medium of all sensibility, the 
nerves are the seat of a special class of feelings related to 
the Organic condition of the Nervous tissue. In this class, 
we may include acute affections of the nerves ; the de- 



AFFECTIONS OF THE NERVOUS SUBSTANCE. 31 

pression arising from nervous fatigue and exhaustion ; and 
the exhilaration of freshness and of stimulants. 

(1) Diseases and injuries of the nerves are productive of 
intense suffering, as in tic-doleureux and the other neuralgic 
affections. It is enough to class these among acute pains. 
Their specific character, as feelings, is somewhat different 
from the acute pains of muscle, or of the other tissues, but 
language hardly suffices to mark the difference. 

(2) Nervous fatigue or exhaustion, caused by over- 
exertion of mind, and even of body, by deficiency of rest or 
nutriment, and by intense or prolonged suffering, may induce 
neuralgic affections, but more commonly ends in general 
depression. This state is known to every one. Technically, 
we may designate it as pain, not acute, but massive ; the 
amount is known by comparison, and by the pleasure swal- 
lowed up in neutralizing it. Weakness, ennui, heaviness, 
insupportable dullness, the sense as of an atmosphere of lead, 
the blackness of darkness, — are names for this general condi- 
tion. An accumulation of pains and privations will produce 
the misery of depression, while the nerves are fresh and 
healthy, as in the punishment of the young offender ; and, on 
the other hand, a morbid change in the nerve substance will 
cause the state in any one surrounded with delights, and 
shielded from hardship. 

(3) It is implied in what is now said, that the healthy con- 
dition of the nerves is of itself a cause of exhilaration. This is 
the unspeakable blessing of perfect health, the result of a good 
constitution well preserved by the circumstances of a happy lot. 

This mental condition is, for a short time, equalled, and 
even surpassed, by the perilous help of stimulating drugs, 
whose nature it is to operate directly on the substance of the 
nerves. 

Organic Feelings of the Circulation and Nutrition. 

5. Although it is difficult to isolate the separate or- 
ganic influences, in their agency on the mind, we are 
entitled to presume that feelings of exhilaration and of 
depression are connected with the Circulation of the Blood 
and the Nourishment of the Tissues. 

The formidable states, thirst and inanition, arise from 
deficiency in the blood in the first instance ; but a derange- 



32 SENSATIONS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 

ment of the organs generally must be assumed to account for 
their virulence. 

Thirst is not purely localized in the stomach ; and Inani- 
tion is different from Hunger. Both conditions, mentally 
viewed, are modes of suffering, not so acute as acute pains 
proper, but yet much more so than mere dejection, and at the 
same time large in mass or volume. There is present the de- 
pressing state of exhaustion, coupled with the acute irritation 
of deranged organs. 

A feeling purely connected with the Circulation is what 
arises from long confinement to one posture, sitting or lying. 
The circulation in the skin being arrested, an uneasy feeling 
results, which prompts to changes of posture ; it causes great 
discomfort to the bed-ridden patient, as well as being a source 
of new disease ; an efficient remedy for both has been found in 
Dr. Arnott's water bed. 

Part of the consciousness of good or ill health must depend 
on the contact of the blood with the nerve tissue ; it being 
hardly possible to assign the proportions severally due to the 
nerve's own condition, and to that nutritive contact, although 
the facts have to be distinguished in the analysis of the mind. 
The sleek, fat, full-blooded temperament has its peculiar mental 
tone, attributable to the circulation and nutrition rather than 
to the quality of the nerves. 

Feelings of Respiration. 

6. The interchange of oxygen with carbonic acid takes 
place at the surface of the lungs, and any variation in the 
rate of this interchange is accompanied with sensibility. 
The extreme form of pain is Suffocation ; the opposite 
state is a grateful Freshness or exhilaration. 

Oxygen is our aerial food ; our vital forces are measured 
by the amount of it consumed in oxidizing our food proper. 
The first requisite in the process is that the oxygen be abun- 
dantly inhaled by the lungs. The hindrance of the inhalation 
is painful, the furtherance pleasurable. A settled pace is 
neutral. 

The characteristic sensibility of the lungs is manifested in 
suffocation. Its causes are the want of air, as from drowning, 
from certain irritating gases, such as chlorine or sulphurous 
acid, from asthma and other diseases. The insupportable sen- 
sation ensuing on want of breath hardly resembles any other 



SENSATION OF PURE AIR. 33 

feeling. It lias a certain element of the racking pain, as of 
muscles drawn opposite ways ; but it is something more than 
muscular, and must be set down at present as a unique result, 
of a unique process. 

Short of suffocation, there may be a temporary lowering 
of the respiratory vigour, the effect of which is mere depres- 
sion of tone, without characteristic accompaniment. On enter- 
ing a crowded room, the depression is instantly felt ; it may 
approach, or amount to, fainting. 

The transition to a purer atmosphere gives the exhilaration, 
described as buoyancy and freshness ; but we can scarcely de- 
termine how much of this is due to the better oxidation of the 
blood throughout the system, and how much to a stimulation 
of the surface of the lungs. The extreme case of suffocation 
must be held as proving a special lung- sensibility ; whence 
we are to presume that part of the sensation of changes in the 
air is localized in the lungs. 

Neither the continuation of the same state of the air, nor a 
very gradual change, is accompanied with sensation, a fact 
exemplifying the most universal condition of the production 
of consciousness, namely, change of impression from one state 
to another. 

Feelings of Seat and Cold. 

7. Changes of Temperature give rise to feeling, in all 
parts of the body, although the greatest sensitiveness is in 
the skin. 

The operation of cold and heat is on the organic functions. 
The capillary circulation is first affected ; the vessels being 
contracted by cold, and expanded by heat. The contraction 
of the vessels stops the supply of blood, and diminishes the 
nutrition of the parts, causing organic depression and discom- 
fort. At the same time, however, a reflex stimulus to the lungs 
quickens the breathing action, and additional oxygen is taken 
in ; so that, indirectly, the vital forces are increased, and the 
temporary and local depression may be more than atoned for. 
We may thus account for the bracing effects of cold applied 
within certain limits. Heat is in every respect the obverse. 

The sensation of Cold is, as a rule, painful, and may be 
either acute or massive ; nowhere is this distinction in the two 
modes of Degree so clearly marked. An acute cold acts like 
a cut or a bruise, and is sufficiently characterized among acute 
physical pains ; the destruction of the tissue and the irritation 
3 



o 



4 SENSATIONS OF OKGANIC LIFE, 



of the nerve is the same as in a scald. The massive feeling of 
cold, expressed by chillness, may amount to extreme wretched- 
ness. 

The sensation of Warmth, on emerging from cold, is one 
of the greatest of physical enjoyments. It may be acute, as in 
drinking warm liquid, or massive, as in the bath, or other warm 
surrounding. Of passive physical pleasure, it is perhaps the 
typical form ; the other modes may be, and constantly are, 
illustrated by comparison with it ; as are also the genial pas- 
sive emotions — love, beauty, &c. 

The principle above alluded to, — namely, change of im- 
pression as a condition of consciousness, is also prominently 
exemplified in heat and cold ; an even temperature gives no 
sensation. 

Sensations of the Alimentary Canal, 

8. These sensations, although closely allied to Taste, 
are not to be confounded with it. 

The objects of the sense are the materials taken into 
the body as food and drink. 

Food is variously classified. Water is the liquid basis, or 
vehicle. The solids are divided into Saccharine substances, 
including starch and sugar ; Oily substances, as the various 
fats and oils, including alcohol ; Albuminous substances (which 
contain nitrogen), as albumen, the fibre of meat, caseine (from 
cheese), gelatine, &c. These last are requisite in renewing 
the tissues, which nearly all contain nitrogen ; while the 
others serve the more exclusive function of producing force, 
(as muscular power, nervous power, and animal heat,) by 
slow combustion or oxidation, which is also the destination of 
the largest part of the albuminous food. 

9. Omitting the physiology of Digestion, we may 
enumerate, as follows, the chief feelings due to Ali- 
mentary states — Relish and Eepletion, Hunger, Nausea, 
and the Pains of Deranged Digestion. 

Relish and Repletion are the pleasurable states of eating. 
Varying with the digestive power of the system, and with 
the quality of the food, these feelings are, in ordinary cir- 
cumstances, an important part of human pleasure. The first 
stage is represented by Relish, a pleasurable sensation, both 
acute and of considerable amount. The volitional energy 
inspired by it, in all animals, is the most remarkable testimony 



PLEASUKES AND PAINS OF DIGESTION. 35 

to its intensity as pleasure. The acute stage of relish is suc- 
ceeded by the more voluminous pleasure of Repletion, whose 
seat is in the surface of the stomach, the part engaged in the 
digestion of the food ; a massive exhilaration, closely allied to 
agreeable warmth, and to the elation of stimulants, 

The physical concomitants of Hunger are a collapsed con- 
dition of the stomach, and a deficiency of nutritive material in 
the system. Of the feeling itself, the first stages are mere 
depression or uneasiness ; next come on gnawing pains re- 
ferred to the region of the stomach, and in part muscular ; 
these are followed by sensations of a more massive character, 
derived from the system at large, and indicating the stage of 
inanition or starvation. 

Nausea and Disgust express a mode of powerful feeling 
characteristic of digestion, as suffocation is of the lungs. The 
feeling is associated with the act of vomiting ; the wretched- 
ness of it in extreme cases, as sea-sickness, is insufferable. 
The sensation is unique. The healthy routine of comfortable 
digestion is exchanged for a depression great in mass, and 
aggravated by acute nervous suffering. The memory of this 
state is an active recoil from whatever causes it ; hence disgust 
is a term for the most intense repugnance and loathing. 

The pains of Deranged Digestion are numerous. Some are 
extremely acute, as spasm in any part of the intestine. Many 
forms of indigestion are known simply as inducing a depressed 
tone, or interfering with the exhilaration of healthy meals. 
Sluggishness of the bowels is attended with massive depres- 
sion ; the re- action brings a corresponding buoyancy. 

Under the present head may be classed the feelings con- 
nected with the sexual organs, the mammary glands in 
woman, and the lachrymal gland and sac. These are the 
result of organic processes in the first instance ; but they 
enter into complicated alliances, to be afterwards noticed, with 
our special emotions. 

There still remain the important organic functions of the 
Skin, which are attended with pleasurable and painful sensi- 
bilities. They will be noticed under the sense of Touch. 

In the Muscular Feelings, together with the Organic Sen- 
sations now enumerated, arises that large body of our sensi- 
bility denominated physical Comfort and Discomfort. 



36 SENSE OF TASTE. 



SENSE OF TASTE. 

1. The sense of Taste, attached to the entrance of the 
alimentary canal, is a source of pleasure and pain, and a 
means of discrimination, in taking food. 

The Objects of Taste are chiefly the materials of food. 

Of mineral bodies, water is without taste. But most 
liquid substances, and most solids that can be liquified or dis- 
solved, have taste ; vinegar, common salt, alum, are familiar 
instances. 

Nearly all vegetable and animal products, in like manner, are 
characterized by taste. A few substances are insipid, as white 
of egg, starch, gum ; but the greater part exhibit well marked 
tastes ; sweet, as sugar ; bitter, as quinine, morphine, strych- 
nine, gentian, quassia, soot, &c. ; sour, as acids generally ; 
pungent, as mustard, pepper, peppermint ; fiery, as alcohol. 

2. The Organ of Taste is the tongue, and the seat of 
sensibility is its upper surface. 

The upper surface of the tongue is seen to be covered with 
little projections called papillae. They are of three kinds, dis- 
tiDguished by size and form. The smallest and most numer- 
ous are conical or tapering, and cover the greatest part of the 
tongue, disappearing towards the base. The middle-sized are 
little rounded eminences scattered over the middle and fore 
part of the tongue, being most numerous towards the point 
The large-sized are eight to fifteen in number, situated on the 
back of the tongue, and arranged in two rows at an angle like 
the letter V. The papillss contain capillary blood vessels 
and filaments of nerve, and are the seat of the sensibility of the 
tongue. 

Two different nerves supply the tongue ; branches of the 
nerve called glosso-jpharyngeal (tongue and throat nerve) are 
distributed to the back part ; twigs of the fifth pair (nerve of 
touch of the face) go to the fore-part. The effect, as will be 
seen, is a two-fold sensibility ; taste proper attaches to the 
first named nerve, the glosso-pharyngeal ; bitter is tasted 
chiefly at the back of the tongue. Taken, as a whole, the sen- 
sibility of the tongue is distributed over the whole upper side, 
but less in the middle part and most in the base, sides, and 
tip. The relish of food increases from the tip to the back, 



TASTE IN SYMPATHY WITH DIGESTION. 37 

which is an inducement to keep the morsel moving backwards 
till it is finally swallowed. 

The indispensable condition of taste is solubility. Also 
the tongue must not be in a dry or parched condition. The 
sensibility is increased by a moderate pressure ; and is dead- 
ened by cold. 

'No explanation has yet been given of the mode of action 
on the nerves during taste. It is probably of a chemical 
nature, resulting from the combination of the dissolved food 
with a secretion from the blood-vessels of the papillae. 

3. The Sensations of Taste fall under a three-fold 
division : (1) those in direct sympathy with the Stomach, 
as Eelish ; (2) Taste proper, and (3) Touch. 

As to the first, there is an obvious continuity of structure 
in the Tongue and Alimentary canal, a common character of 
surface as regards mucous membrane, glands, and papillae. 
Moreover, apart from taste proper, the feeling in the tongue 
indicates at once whether a substance will agree or disagree 
with the stomach ; the tongue is in fact the stomach begun. 
And farther, what we call relish is distinct from taste ; butter 
and cooked flesh are relishes ; salt and quinine are tastes ; the 
one varies with the condition of the stomach, being in some 
states converted into nausea, as in sea-sickness ; the other re- 
mains under all variations of the digestive power. 

4. The Tastes in sympathy with the Stomach are 
Relishes and Disgusts. 

Relishes, as already explained, are the agreeable feelings 
arising from the kinds of food called savoury, as animal 
food, and the richer kinds of vegetables. Sugar is both 
a relish and a taste. As a feeling of pleasure, a relish is more 
acute and less massive than the digestive sensations, but less 
acute and more massive than mere sweetness of taste. The 
speciality of the feeling is the alliance with digestion. What 
possesses relish may be hard to digest, but will not be nau- 
seous in the stomach. The strength of this feeling is farther 
measured by its volitional urgency, or spur to the act of eat- 
ing. The intellectual persistence is not high. 

Relishes imply their opposite, disgusts, in which the sto- 
machic sympathy is equally apparent, and which may be 
similarly characterized with reference to the corresponding 
digestive sensation. 



38 SENSE OF TASTE. 

5. Taste proper comprehends Sweet and Bitter tastes. 

Sweetness is typified in the taste of sugar, to whose pre- 
sence is owing the sweetness of fruits and articles of food 
generally. This sensation may be called the proper pleasure 
of taste, or the enjoyment derivable through a favourable 
stimulus of the gustatory nerves. In Degree it is acute ; in 
Speciality we recognize it as possessing a character, inde- 
scribable in language, but not confounded with the pleasure 
of any other sense. Its volitional character accords with its 
nature as pleasure. It is more intellectual than Organic sen- 
sations generally, or than Relish ; we can discriminate its de- 
grees better, and remember it better. Taste may be the lowest 
of the live senses, as regards intellectual properties, but it is 
above the highest of the organic group. 

Bitter tastes are exemplified in quinine, gentian, bitter 
aloes, and soot. This, and not sourness, is the opposite of 
sweet ; it is the proper pain of taste, the state arising by irri- 
tating, or unfavourably stimulating, the gustatory nerve. The 
characteristics are the same, with obverse allowance, as for 
sweetness. 

6. In the third class of tastes, there is present an 
element arising through the nerves of Touch. Pungency 
is their prevailing character. They include the saline, 
alkaline, sour or acid, astringent, fiery, acrid. 

The saline taste is typified in common salt. It is neither 
sweet nor bitter, but simply pungent or biting; and, in all 
probability, the sensation is felt through the nerves of the fifth 
pair. In some salts, the pungency is combined with taste pro- 
per; Epsom salts would be termed partly saline, and still 
more decidedly bitter. 

The alkaline taste, as in soda, potash, or ammonia, is a 
more energetic pungency, or more violent irritation of the 
nerves ; the pungency amounting to acute pain, as the action 
becomes destructive of the tissue. 

The sour or acid taste is the most familiar form of pungency, 
as in vinegar. The pain of an acid resembles a scald rather 
than a bitter taste. The pleasure derivable from it is such 
as belongs to pungency, and must observe the same limits. 

The astringent is a mild form of pungency ; it is exemplified 
by alum. The action in this case has manifestly departed from 
pure taste, and become a mere mechanical irritation of the 
nerves of touch. Astringent substances cause a kind of shrink- 



OBJECTS OF SMELL. 39 

ing or contraction of the surface ; an effect imitated by the 
drying up of a solution of salt on the skin. What is called a 
' rough' taste, as tannin, is a form of astringency. 

The fiery taste of mustard, alcohol, camphor, and volatile oils, 
is of the same generic character, although more or less mixed 
with taste proper. The acrid combines the fiery with the bitter. 



SENSE OF SMELL. 

1. The Sense of Smell, placed at the entrance of the 
lungs, is a source of pleasure and pain, and a means of 
discrimination as regards the air taken into the lungs. 

This sense is also in close proximity to the organ of Taste, 
with which smell frequently co-operates. 

2. The Objects of smell are gaseous or volatile bodies, 
the greater number of such being odorous. 

The chief inodorous gases are the elements of the atmo- 
sphere, that is, nitrogen, oxygen, vapour of water, and carbonic 
acid (in the small amount contained in the air). Cai'bonic 
oxide, sulphurous acid, chlorine, iodine, the nitrous gases, 
ammonia, sulphuretted and phosphuretted hydrogen, and the 
vapour of acids generally, are odorous. The newly discovered 
ozone, is named from the odour it gives. Some minerals give 
forth odorous effluvia, as the garlic odour of arsenic, and the 
odour of a piece of quartz when broken. The vegetable king- 
dom is rich in odours ; many plants are distinguished by this 
single property. Animal odours are also numerous. 

The pleasant odours, chemically considered, are hydro- 
carbons ; they are composed chiefly of hydrogen and carbon. 
Such are alcohol and the ethers, eau de Cologne, attar of roses, 
and the perfumes generally. Of the repulsive and disagreeable 
odours, one class contain sulphur, as sulphuretted hydrogen. 
The worst-smelling substances yet discovered have arsenic for 
their base. Such are the Jcakodyle series of compounds dis- 
covered by Bunsen, from the study of a substance long known 
as ■ liquor of Cadet.' The pungent odours are typified by 
ammonia ; nicotine, the element of the snuffs, is an analogous 
compound. 

3. The development of odours is favoured by Heat, and 
by Light. The action of Moisture is not uniform. 



40 SENSE OF SMELL. 

Heat operates by its volatilizing power, and by promoting 
decomposition. Light is a chemical influence. Moisture may 
dissolve solid matters and prepare the way for their being 
volatilized. 

4. The gaseous property, called diffusion, determines 
peculiar manifestations in odours. 

Some odours are light, and therefore diffuse rapidly, and 
rise high ; as sulphuretted hydrogen. The aromatic and 
spice odours, by their intensity and diffusibility combined, are 
smelt at great distances ; the Spice Islands of the Indian 
Archipelago are recognized far out at sea. The animal 
effluvia are mostly dense gases ; they are slowly diffused and 
do not rise high in the air. In scenting, a pointer dog keeps 
his nose close to the ground. Unwholesome effluvia, very 
strong on the ground, are unperceived at the height of a few 
feet. In tropical swamps, safety is obtained by sleeping at a 
height above the ground. 

5. The Organ of Smell is the nose, and the place of sen- 
sibility is the membrane that lines the interior and the 
complicated cavities branching out from it. 

The nose is lined throughout with a mucous membrane ; 
and the complicated bones adjoining it, give extension of sur- 
face to that membrane, whereby the sensibility is magnified. 
It is also an important fact, in the Anatomy of the organ, that 
the proper nerve of smell, called olfactory, is most copiously 
distributed in the interior recesses, and not at all near the 
entrance of the nostrils ; to which part, twigs of the fifth pair 
are distributed, conferring upon it a tactile sensibility, 

6. The mode of action of odours appears to be a process 
of oxidation. 

The facts in favour of that view were pointed out by 
Graham. Odorous substances in general are such as oxygen can 
readily act upon ; for example, sulphurous hydrogen, and the 
perfumes. Again, gases that have no smell are not acted on by 
oxygen at common temperatures ; the pure marsh gas, car- 
buretted hydrogen, which has no smell, has been obtained from 
deep mines, where it has been in contact with oxygen for 
geological ages. It is farther determined that unless a stream 
of oxygen passes through the nose, there is no smell. 



FRESH ODOURS.— FRAGR ANT ODOURS. 41 

7. The Sensations of Smell are, first, those in sympathy 
with the Lungs ; secondly, those of Smell proper ; thirdly, 
those involving excitation of nerves of Touch. 

Those in sympathy with the Lungs may be described 
by the contrasting terms — fresh and close odours. 

Fresh odours are the feelings of exhilaration from the 
quickened action of the lungs. Certain odorous substances 
have that quickening efficacy, as eau de Cologne, lavender, pep- 
permint, and many, but not all, perfumes , the spirit used in 
dissolving the essences being not unfrequently the source of 
the stimulus. These are the substances used for reviving the 
system depressed by the atmosphere of a crowd. Freshness 
may, or may not, be joined with fragrance ; the odour of a 
tanyard is stimulating to the lungs ; the smell of a cow is fresh 
and sweet. Musk is probably stimulating. 

Close or suffocating odours arise from a depressed action 
of the lungs. The effluvia of crowds, and of vegetable and 
animal decay, the deficiency of oxygen, and the accumulation 
of carbonic acid, however caused, lower the powers of life, and 
are accompanied with a, depressing sensation, which should 
properly be called a sensation of the lungs, but which we con- 
nect also with smell. The smell of a pastry-cook's kitchen is 
close and yet sweet. 

Certain odours, as sulphuretted hydrogen, are nauseous or 
disgusting, which implies a sympathy with the stomach, 
although in what mode, or through what nerves, is not clear. 

8. Connected with proper olfactory sensibility are 
fragrant odours and their opposites. 

For sweet or fragrant odours we refer to the rose, the violet, 
the orange, the jasmine, &c. In them we have the proper plea- 
sure of the organ of smell ; the enjoyment derivable through 
the olfactory nerves. It is acute or massive, according to the 
concentration or diffusion of the material ; compare an 
essence, as lavender, or rosemary, with a bed of mignonette 
or a field of clover. A certain degree of what is termed re- 
finement attaches to the pleasures of pure smell ; the stimulus 
is so gentle that it can be endured for a length of time without 
palling. 

The opposite of sweetness is given in the expressive name 
stink ; a milder substitute is malodour. The smell of assafce- 
tida is an example ; some of our repulsive odours are in part 
disgusting, and do not represent pure olfactory j>ain. Va- 



42 SENSE OF SMELL. 

lerian, rag- wort, and the seum of stagnant marsh (squeezed 
in the fingers) give forth malodours. Whenever the olfactory 
nerves are painfully irritated, this is the character of the pain. 
Amid many distinguishable varieties of bad smell, there is a 
common type of sensation. 

9. Through excitation of the nerves of touch, we derive 
the pungent odours. 

Ammonia (as in smelling salts), nicotine, mustard, acetic 
acid, give rise to a sharp stinging sensation, for which the best 
name is pungency. It is most probably a mechanical irritation 
of the nerves of the fifth pair ; habitual snuff- takers lose the 
pure olfactory sensibility. The general effect, named pungency, 
is a mode of nervous and mental excitement ; within limits, it 
gives pleasure. A loud sound, a flash of light, a hurried pace, 
have a rousing effect, pleasurable, if the nerves are fresh and 
unoccupied, painful otherwise. 

The ethereal odours, as alcohol and the aroma of wines, are 
partly fresh and sweet,, and partly pungent. 

There are odours that we may call acrid, combining pun- 
gency with ill smell, as the odour of coal-gas works. 

The sensual appetites are, in many cases, fired by odours. 
The smell of flesh excites the carnivorous appetite ; which may 
be due partly to association, and partly to that sympathy of 
smell with digestion, shown in the nauseous odours. Sexual 
excitement, in some animals, is induced by smell, as by many 
other sensations. There is here a general law, that one great 
pleasure fires the other pleasurable sensibilities. (See Tender 
Emotion.) 

Some sapid bodies are also odorous. In the act of expira- 
tion accompanying mastication, especially the instant after 
swallowing, the odorous particles are carried into the cavities 
of the nose, and affect the sense of smell. This is flavour. 
Cinnamon has no taste, but only a flavour ; that is, an odour 
brought out during mastication. 

Viewing Smell in the Intellectual point of view, once for 
all, we find it considerably in advance of Organic Sensibility, 
if not of Taste also. The power of discrimination exercised 
by smell is very great \ we derive much instruction and 
guidance by means of it. Yet higher in this respect is its 
development in many animals, as the ruminants, certain of 
the pachydermatous animals, and, above all, the carnivorous 
quadrupeds. The scent of the dog seems miraculous. 

The power of recollection is usually in proportion to the 



THE SKIN. 43 

aptitude for discrimination ; and in regard to smells, the 
power of recollecting is considerable. We can, by an effort, 
restore to mind the sweetness of a rose, the pungency of 
smelling salts,, or the bouquet of an essence. 

SENSE OF TOUCH, 

1. As an intellectual, or knowledge-giving sense, Touch, 
ranks decidedly above Taste and Smell. 

The Objects of Touch are principally solid substances. 

Gases do not affect the touch, unless blown with great 
violence. Liquids give little or no feeling, except heat or 
cold. A certain firmness of surface is necessary, such as con- 
stitutes solidity, 

2. The sensitive Organ is the skin, or common integu- 
ment of the body, together with the interior of the mouth, 
the tongue, and the nostrils. 

The parts of the skin are its two layers — cuticle and true 
skin ; the papilla? ; the hairs and the nails ; the two species of 
glands — the one yielding sweat, the other an . oily secretion ; 
with blood vessels and nerves. 

The cuticle is the protective covering of the skin, being 
itself insensible ; it varies in thickness from the % \-$ to the -^ 
of an inch ; being thickest on the soles of the feet, and on the 
palms of the hands. The true skin lying underneath,, and 
containing the papillae, nerves, and blood- vessels, is the sen- 
tient structure. It is marked in various places by furrows, 
also affecting the cuticle, as may be seen in the skin of the 
hand. The papilloe are small conical projections,, besetting 
the whole surface of the skin, but largest and closest on the 
palm of the hand and fingers, and on the sole of the foot. 
Their height on the hand is from -^ ^ to T J-q of an inch. Into 
them blood-vessels enter, and also nerves ; and they are the 
medium of the tactile sensibility of the skin. The two sets of 
glands concern the skin as a great purifying organ.. Yery 
small muscular fibres have been discovered in the skin ; they 
are easily affected by cold, and their contraction makes the 
shivering of the skin. 

3. The action in Touch is simple pressure. 

The contact of a firm body compresses the skin, and, 
through it, the nerve filaments embedded in the papilla?. 



44 SENSE OF TOUCH. 

4. The Sensations of Touch may be arranged under the 
following heads : — the Emotional, and the Intellectual 
sensations of Touch proper ; and the sensations combining 
Touch and Muscularity. 

The first class includes soft Touches, pungent smarts, 
temperature, and some others. 

Soft Touches. In these we suppose the gentle contact of 
some extended surface with the skin, as the under clothing, 
or the bed clothes. From such contact, results a pleasurable 
sensation, of little acuteness, but of considerable mass, when 
a large surface is affected. In most instances of pleasurable 
contact, there is warmth combined with touch, as in the em- 
brace of two creatures of the warm blooded species, or in the 
contact of one part of the body with another. We become 
insensible to the habitual contact of our clothing, on the 
general principle of Relativity ; but the transition to, or from, 
the naked state makes us aware of our sensibility to touch. 

The mixed sensation of contact and warmth is strongly 
manifested in the clinging of the young to the mother, both 
in the human species and in the inferior tribes. The warm 
contact is maintained with great energy of will. It also de- 
termines many of the peculiar modes of expression in human 
beings ; as the putting of the finger or the hand to the 
mouth and face, either as mere sensuous luxury, or as a 
solace in pain. In luxurious repose, a soft warm contact is 
desiderated for the hands. 

Pungent and painful sensations of Touch, A sharp, intense, 
smarting contact with the skin, produces, up to a certain point, 
an agreeable pungency or excitement ; beyond that, an acute 
pain of the physical class. This is precisely analogous to the 
effects of pungency spoken of under the foregoing Senses. 
Mere sensation, as such, is pleasurable within limits, when 
the nerves are fresh. Excitement is joyful to the unexpended 
nervous vigour ; and this is gained by pungency. 

The acute pains of the skin are illustrated in the discipline 
of the whip .; a form of pain supposed to have both volitional 
efficiency at the moment, and intellectual persistency for the 
future. 

Sensations of Temperature. We included the feelings of 
heat and cold among organic sensations. They are, in the 
vast majority of instances, connected with the skin, of whose 
sensibility they are a large and important item. The effect of 
changes of temperature on the nerves may still be mechanical, 



INTELLECTUAL SENSATIONS OF TOUCH. 45 

seeing that the direct influence of such changes is to expand 
or contract the tissue. Some have supposed special nerves of 
heat and cold, but without good evidence. The pleasures and 
pains from this source have been sufficiently characterized. 

The intellectual aspect of the sense of Temperature deserves 
mention. The power of discrimination has been estimated by 
Weber, and is found the same at high and at low tempera- 
tures ; we can distinguish 14° from 14°.4 Heaumur, as well as 
30° from 30°.4 * this amounts to discerning a difference of about 
1° Fahrenheit. The order of sensitiveness of the parts is as 
follows ; — tip of the tongue, eyelids, lips, neck, trunk : this is 
nearly, but not exactly, the order of sensitiveness to tactile 
sensation. 

Other painful sensations of the sldn. The organic sensi- 
bility of the skin gives rise to a variation of sensations ; its 
healthy condition is an element in our physical comfort, and 
obversely. Long compression of the same part, by checking the 
circulation and affecting the nerves, occasions a massive un- 
easiness. Fretting, chafing, pulling the hairs, tearing open the 
nails, bring on acute pains. 

Another peculiar sensation of the skin is Tickling. On this, 
Weber remarks, that the lips, the walls of the nasal openings, and 
the face generally, when touched with a feather, give the peculiar 
sensation of tickling, which continues till the part is rubbed by the 
hand. In the nose, the irritation leads at last to sneezing. The 
excitation extends to the ducts of the glands, which pour out their 
contents, and increase the irritation. The violent sensation pro- 
duced by bodies in contact with the eye, is of the nature of tick- 
ling accompanied by flow from the glands, and readily passing into 
pain. Why some places are liable to this sensation and others not, 
it is difficult to explain. The possession of delicate tactual dis- 
crimination is not necessary to the effect. 

5. The Intellectual sensations of Touch proper are 
Plurality of points and Pressure. 

Plurality of points. One great feature in the intellectual 
superiority of Touch, is the separateness of the sensations on 
different parts of the skin. The points of a two-pronged fork 
resting on the hand are noted as giving a double sensation ; 
whereas in smell, there is no sense of plurality ; there may be 
a sense of increase or diminution of degrees, but the whole 
effect is one and continuous. 

Yery remarkable inequalities in the degree of this dis- 
crimination are observable on comparing different parts of the 
body. The experiments for determining these (first instituted 



46 SENSE OF TOUCH. 

by Weber) consists in placing the two points of a pair of com- 
passes, blunted with sealing wax, at different distances 
asunder, and in various directions, upon different parts of the 
body. It is then found that the smallest distance, for giving 
the sense of double contact, varies from the thirty- sixth of an 
inch to three inches. In Weber's observations the range was 
the twenty- fourth of an inch to two and a half inches. The 
part most sensitive is the tip of the tongue ; according to 
Weber, the smallest interval of doubleness is ■£% of an inch. 

The interval of plurality varies according to the following cir- 
cumstances. (1) It is greater across than along any of the limbs ; 
across the middle of the arm or fore-axm it is two inches, along 
the arm, three. (2) It is greater when the surfaces vary in struc- 
ture, as the inner and outer surface of the lips. (3) If one of the 
points is pressed forcibly, the other ceases to be distinguished. 
(4) Two points, at a great distance apart, on a surface of greater 
sensibility, are judged to be more widely apart. This will be 
shown by drawing compasses over the different parts ; they will 
seem to widen in the most sensitive organs. The tongue exag- 
gerates holes in the teeth. (5) By moving the points, instead of 
keeping them still, the sensitiveness is greater ; an interval felt 
single at rest, may feel double under motion. In the tactile dis- 
crimination of a surface, we usually move the hand. 

Whenever two points produce a double sensation, we may 
imagine that one point lies on the area supplied by one distinct 
nerve, while the other point lies on the area of a second nerve. 
There is a certain stage of subdivision or branching of the nerves 
of touch, beyond which the impressions are fused into one on 
reaching the cerebrum. How many ultimate nerve fibres are con- 
tained in each unit nerve, we cannot pretend to guess ; but on the 
skin of the back, the middle of the thigh, and the middle of the 
fore-arm, an area of three inches diameter, or between six and 
seven square inches, is supplied by the filaments of a single unit. 
On the point of the finger, the units are so multiplied, that each 
supplies no more than a space whose diameter is the tenth of an 
inch. Such units correspond to the entire body of the olfactory 
or gustatory nerve ; for these nerves give but one undivided im- 
pression for the whole affected. If we had two different organs 
of smell, and two distinct olfactory nerves, we should then pro- 
bably have a feeling of doubleness or repetition of smells, like the 
sense of two points on the skin. 

Sensation of Pressure. When a contact amounts to a 
certain energy of compression, we have a sensation passing 
beyond mere touch. Muscular resistance apart, there is 
a feeling induced by the compression of the deep-seated 
parts together with the skin. It is a neutral feeling, 
unless carried to the pitch of acute pain ; but as we are 



TOUCH COMBINED WITH MUSCULARITY. 4/ 

intellectually conscious of its various degrees, it is a help .to 
our perception of mechanical forces. 

The discrimination of pressure is obtained free from the 
muscular discrimination, by supporting the hand on a table, 
and putting weights upon it. In this way, Weber found that 
the tips of the fingers could discriminate between 20 oz. and 
19*2 oz.; and the forearm 20 oz. from 18*7 oz. This discrimi- 
nation does not increase in proportion to the abundance of the 
nervous filaments supplied to the part. 

6. The third class of Sensations of Touch are those 
combining touch with muscular feeling. They include 
resistance, weight, and pressure; hardness and softness; 
roughness and smoothness; and the various modes of Ex- 
tension. 

Resistance, Weight, and Pressure. These, as already shown, 
are primarily- connected with muscular energy ; a greater 
weight induces a greater muscular expenditure. We have 
just seen, however, that the compression of the skin and sub- 
jacent parts is also a clue to the same property. But the 
muscular discrimination surpasses the tactile at least in a 
threefold degree : and what is of more consequence, the 
muscular or active consciousness is what constitutes to us 
the property of weight, pressure, or force. The feeling of 
compression of the hand or limb is of itself a subjective sen- 
sation, and might be confounded with mere subjective pains, 
as in hurts. The feeling of expended energy is unambiguous 
and decisive ; it means to us the objective fact of mechanical 
force, the fundamental consciousness that we call matter. 

Hardness and Softness. We appreciate these qualities also 
by the combined sensibility to pressure. The degree of resis- 
tance to change of form is the degree of hardness. The nice 
discrimination of this property enters into various manual pro- 
cesses, as the art of the pastry-cook, the builder, the sculptor, 
&c. We must still consider it as mainly residing in the mus- 
cular tissue, which, according to its nervous endowments, may 
be unequally developed among individuals, in respect of 
discrimination. Elasticity is a mere variety of hardness and 
softness ; it means the varying resistance, together with the 
rebound of the body compressed. 

Roughness and Smoothness are referable, in the first in- 
stance, to the sense of plurality of points. The finger resting 
on the face of a brush gives the feeling of a plurality of pricks, 



48 SENSE OF TOUCH. 

and we can judge whether these are few and scattered, 
or whether they are numerous and close, up to the point 
where they become too close for the sensibility of the 
part. We can thus discriminate between a coarse pile and 
finer one. But by moving the finger, according to a principle 
already laid down, we increase the power of discrimination. 
A third means is the organic sensibility to chafing, which is 
greater as a surface is rougher; this brings in the pecu- 
liarity of sharpness or bluntness of the asperities ; it applies 
accurately to the operation of polishing, where the purpose is 
to do away with all asperities. In discerning the qualities of 
woven textures, softness and smoothness are taken together ; 
and there are great individual differences of tactual delicacy, 
natural or acquired, in that discernment. The fineness of a 
powder, and the beat of a pulse, are judged of almost exclu- 
sively by skin sensibility. 

These tactile sensations, whose importance consists in the 
intellectual property of discrimination, have also a corres- 
ponding retentiveness. We can recall and compare ideas of 
touch, we can imagine or construct new ones, although with 
less facility and vividness than in the case of sights. With 
the blind, whose external world is a world of touch, this 
memory attains a much higher compass. 

Extension, Form, &c. — It has been already laid down that 
Extension, the most general property of the object world, is 
based on our consciousness of muscular energy, and not on any 
mode of passive sensation. Still, our two senses — Touch and 
sight, play an important part in the development of the notion, 
which is highly complex, and not a simple or elementary 
feeling, like mere resistance. 

The purely muscular part of the feeling or idea of Exten- 
sion is unresisted movement, as in the sweep of the arm, or 
the forward movement of the body, in free space. It has been 
seen that we have a discrimination of the duration and the 
pace of these unobstructed movements. But the power oi 
measuring degrees and of making comparisons is aided by 
touch (and by sight), and that in various ways. (1) In the 
first place, Touch (or the mixed sensation of touch and resist- 
ance) supplies definite marks to indicate the beginning and 
the end of the sweep, as in estimating the width of a door- 
way by the hand, or the dimensions of a room by walking 
across it. Extension is the antithesis of resistance or ob- 
structed movement, and is felt by the presence of its contrast, 
and this involves contact or touch. The only real notion that 



THE CO-EXISTING IN SPACE, 49 

we can ever form of extension, as empty space, is a sweep 
between two resistances ; infinite space, where the points, 
or termini, of resistance are done away with, is therefore an 
incompetent, irrelevant, impossible conception ; it does not 
comply with the conditions indispensable to the notion. (2) 
In the second place, when the hand is moved over a snrface, 
the feeling of continuance of movement is accompanied with 
a continnance of tactile sensation, and the estimate of the 
two jointly is more exact than of one singly. A feeling of 
the snbject (tonch proper) is superadded to a feeling of the 
object (expended energy, as movement) and deepens the im- 
press of that sensibility without constituting itself the objective 
basis. (3) In the third place, movement in vacuo is unable 
to indicate the vital difference between succession and co- 
existence — time and space. IsTow, co-existence in space is 
implied in our matured idea of extension. But this co- 
existence is the result of a peculiar experience, and to 
that experience the senses must contribute. When we move 
the hand over a fixed surface, we have, together with feelings 
of movement, a succession of feelings of touch ; if the surface is 
a variable one, as when a blind man reads with the hand, the 
sensations are constantly changing, and are recognized as a 
definite series. Repeat the movement, and the series is re- 
peated ; invert the movement, and the series appears in an 
inverted order. Xow this continuance of a fixed serial order 
marks something different from mere continuing: movement 
by itself, which gives no element of fixity or persistence. A 
person looking on while a procession passes by, is differently 
affected from another person walking up and down by the 
side of the same body standing still. Such is the difference 
between time and space, as appreciated by combined move- 
ment and sensation. Time or succession is the simpler fact ; 
co-existence, or extension in space, is a complex fact ; and the 
serial fixedness of sensations is one element of the complication. 
Extension is recognized by us as linear, superficial, or 
solid ; the difference being one of complexity. Linear ex- 
tension nearly corresponds to a simple sweep of the arm ; the 
straight direction, however, demands a muscular adjustment. 
Superficial extension, as in a pane of glass, involves cross 
movements in addition. Cubical extension is merely a higher 
stage of complication. We are capable not only of the mus- 
cular groupings requisite for these three grades of extension, 
but of discriminating one grouping from another ; a short line 
from a longer, an oblong from a square, and so on ; and we 



50 SENSE OF TOUCH. 

are farther capable of retaining or laying up abiding impres- 
sions corresponding to each. We can retain, and recall, the 
muscular movements, groupings, and adjustments, deter- 
mined in our tactual examination of a one foot cube ; such a 
cube means to us (sight apart) a series of touches imbedded 
in a series of muscular feelings. 

Our having two hands, and five fingers in each, gives us 
another, and shorter, clue to surface and solidity. The out- 
spread hand with its plurality of touches is a means of dis- 
tinguishing surface, enhanced by the use of both hands. In 
like manner, solidity can be perceived by the clench of one hand 
on two surfaces, or still better, by combining both hands. 
The sense of solidity gained by combining the hands is 
parallel to the solid effect in vision from the two eyes. 

Size, Distance, Direction, Situation, and Form, are merely 
modes of Extension ; they are all muscular experiences 
aided by sense. Size or magnitude is merely another name 
for extension. Distance is extension between two points. 
Direction, mathematically taken, is measurement of distance 
from some standard of reference. The primitive reference is to 
our own body ; and direction consists in the specific move- 
ments of the different members — the putting forth of the right 
arm or the left, the throwing the hand or body forwards or 
backwards, up or down. Situation is distance and direction 
combined. Form is the successive positions of the outline ; 
we acquire definite movements corresponding to the different 
forms — a straight line, a circle, an oval, a sphere, a cube, 
and embody our recollection of these in ideal movements or 
muscular feelings, with tactile accompaniments. 

Thus, in the knowledge of Extension, and its modes, 
through touch and locomotion, there is already a vast and 
complicated mass of acquirements, involving a large number 
of muscles and an immense apparatus of connecting nerves. 

The observations made on persons born blind have furnished 
a means of judging how far touch can substitute sight, both in 
mechanical and in intellectual operations. These observations 
have shown, that there is nothing essential to the highest intel- 
lectual processes of science and thought, that may not be attained 
in the absence of sight. The integrity of the moving apparatus 
of the frame renders it possible to acquire the fundamental 
notions of space, magnitude, figure, force, and movement, and 
through these to comprehend the great leading facts of creation, 
as taught in mathematical, mechanical, or physical science. 



PARTS OF THE EAR. 51 



SENSE OF HEARING. 

1. The Objects of hearing are material bodies in a state 
of tremour or vibration, from being struck ; which tremour 
affects the air, and thence the ear. 

Hard and elastic textures are the most sonorous. The 
metals rank first ; next, are woods, stones, and earthy bodies. 
Liquids and gases sound feebly, unless impinged by solids. 
The howling and the rustling of the wind are its play upon the 
earth's surface, like the iEolian harp. In the cataract, water 
impinges water ; and, in the thunder, air is struck by air. 

2. The Ear, the Organ of hearing, is divisible into (1) 
the External ear, (2) the Tympanum or Middle ear, and (3) 
the Labyrinth, or Internal ear. 

The two first divisions are appendages or accessories of 
the third, which contains the sentient surface. 

The Outer ear includes the wing of the ear — augmenting 
the sound by reflexion, and the passage of the ear, which is 
closed at the inner end by the membrane of the tympanum . 

The Middle ear, or Tympanum, is a narrow irregular 
cavity, extending to the labyrinth, and communicating with 
the throat, through the Eustachian tube. It contains a chain 
of small bones, stretching from the inner side of the membrane 
of the tympanum to an opening in the labyrinth ; there are 
also certain very minute muscles attached to these bones. The 
inner wall of the tympanum, which is the outer wall of the 
labyrinth, is an even surface of bone, but chiefly noted for two 
openings — the oval and the round — both closed with mem- 
brane. It is to the oval opening that the inner end of the 
chain of bones, the stirrup bone, is applied. Of the muscles, 
the largest is attached to the outer bone of the chain (the 
malleus), and is called tensor tym/pani, because its action is to 
draw inwards, and tighten, the tympanum. Two or three 
other muscles are named, but their action is doubtful. 

The Internal ear, or Labyrinth, contained in the petrous or 
hard portion of the temporal bone, is made up of two struc- 
tures, the bony and the membranous labyrinth. The bony 
labyrinth presents externally a spiral shell called the cochlea, 
and three projecting rings called the semicircular canals. The 
interior is hollow, and filled with a clear liquid secreted from 
a thin lining membrane. It contains a membranous structure^ 



52 SENSE OF HEARING, 

corresponding in shape to the tortuosities of the bony laby- 
rinth, hence called the membranous labyrinth ; this structure 
encloses a liquid secretion, and supports the ramifications of 
the auditory nerve. 

3. The mode of action, in hearing, is the ultimate com- 
pression of the filaments of the nerve of hearing, by the 
compression of the liquid contents of the labyrinth. The 
ear is thus a very delicate organ of touch. 

The waves of sound, entering the outer ear, strike the 
membrane of the tympanum, and make it vibrate. These 
vibrations are communicated to the chain of bones ; and the 
last of the chain — the stirrup bone, gives a corresponding series 
of beats to the tight membrane of the oval opening, the result 
of which is a series of condensations of the liquid contents, 
and compressions of the auditory nerve ; these compressions 
propagated to the brain are connected with the sensation of 
sound. An experimental imitation of the mechanism has 
shown that the arrangement answers well for delicate hearing; 
the surface best adapted for receiving aerial beats is a stretched 
membrane ; which membrane imparts these most advantage- 
ously to a solid rod ; and between a solid rod and the auditory 
nerve the most suitable medium is a liquid. The intensity 
and the rapidity of the nerve compressions are exactly in ac- 
cordance with the aerial waves. Our greatest difficulty is to 
understand how a single rod can be the medium of a large 
volume or plurality of sounds ; we must suppose them taken 
in succession by an extraordinary rapidity of the vibrating 
action. Attempts have been made to allocate the different 
degrees of pitch to different parts of the labyrinth, and thence 
to distinct nervous filaments. 

It has not been completely ascertained on what occasions, and 
with what effect, the tensor tympani muscle is brought into play. 
It was observed by Wollaston, that when the membrane is stretched 
the ear is less affected by grave sounds, as thunder or cannon, and 
more sensitive to shrill sounds, as the rattling of carriages or 
the creaking of paper. Hence the action of the tensor tympani 
muscle would be protective against painfully grave sounds, and 
obversely. 

4. The Sensations of Sound may be divided into three 
heads : — (1) The General Emotional effects of sound ; (2) 
Musical sounds; and (3) the Intellectual sensations. 

The General effects of sound may be considered under 



EMOTIONAL SENSATIONS OF SOUND. 53 

Quality (pleasant and painful), Intensity ) and Volume or 
Quantity. 

Sweetness. The terms sweet, rich, mellow, silvery, are 
applied to the pleasing sensations of sound, pure and simple. 
Certain materials, instruments, and voices, by their mere 
tone, please and charm the ear ; while some are indifferent, 
and others have a grating, harsh effect. The structural 
peculiarities connected with these differences are still a matter 
of conjecture. From the analogy of touch, we may suppose 
that a gentle stimulation of the nerves of hearing is plea- 
surable, and the admixture of violent impulses painful. Another 
circumstance is assigned by Helmholtz — namely, purity or 
singleness of tone, instead of discordant variety. 

The character of sweet sounds generally is acute pleasure, 
as we might expect from an organ small and sensitive. While 
the emotional and volitional peculiarities are sufficiently im- 
plied in this designation, a remark must be made on the intel- 
lectual property of the pleasures of sound. We are now ap- 
proaching, if we have not reached, the top of the scale in this 
respect ; the pleasures of hearing, taken as a whole, are more 
endurable, more persistent, and more easily revived in idea, 
than any other sensible pleasures, except sights. 

Intensity, Loudness. Any sound, not too loud, may be 
agreeable solely as stimulus, without giving the acute pleasure 
above described. A certain pitch of loudness amounts to 
pungency of sensation, mere excitement, which is grateful 
under the circumstances already noticed, namely, unexhausted 
nervous irritability. A certain coarse pleasure is given to 
robust natures and to children by loud noise, as by any other 
kind of exciting stimulus. Beyond these limits, loudness of 
sound passes into acute pain, and is a cause of nervous ex- 
haustion ; as in the screeching of a parrot- menagerie, the 
shrill barking of dogs, the screaming of infants, the railway 
whistle. The mental discomposure is greater when they are 
sudden and unexpected. 

Volume or Quantity. Acute as is the general character of 
hearing as a sense, we may have effects that are by compari- 
son voluminous. This happens when the sound comes from 
a sounding mass of large surface or extent ; for example, the 
shout of a great multitude, the waves of the many- sounding 
sea, the thunder, or the wind. The multiplication of sound 
is more agreeable than the augmented intensity ; the stimulus 
is increased without adding to the nervous fatigue. Apart 



54 SENSE OF HEARING. 

from intrinsic sweetness and music, the greatest pleasures of 
sound are derived from voluminous effects. 
■ 

5. Musical Sounds involve the properties of Pitch, 
Waxing and Waning, Harmony and Discord. 

Pitch, or Tone. This is the fundamental property of musical 
sounds. 

By pitch is meant the acuteness or graveness of the sound, as 
determined by the ear ; and this is found to depend on the rapidity 
of vibration of the sounding body, or the number of vibrations 
performed in a given time. Most ears can mark a difference be- 
tween two sounds differing in acuteness or pitch; those that 
cannot do so, to a minute degree, are incapable of music. The 
gravest sound audible to the human ear is stated, by the generality 
of experimenters, at 20 vibrations per second ; the limit of acute- 
ness is various for different individuals, the highest estimate is 
73,000 vibrations in the second. The cry of a bat is so acute as to 
pass out of the hearing of many persons. The extreme audible 
range would amount to between nine and ten octaves. 

A musical note is sweeter than an unmusical sound ema- 
nating from the same source. The explanation may be partly 
its purity, and partly its containing already an element of 
harmony, in the equal timing of the beats. 

Waxing and Waning of sound. The charm of this pe- 
culiar effect, resembling the waxing and waning of move- 
ments (p. 23), is well known. t That music hath a dying 
fall.' The moaning of the wind exemplifies it. The skilful 
singer knows how to turn it to account. In some kinds of 
pathetic oratory, it degenerates into the whine or sing-song. 

Harmony and Discord. When a plurality of sounds concur, 
there may be harmony, discord, or mere indifference. 

Harmony is known to aiise from the proportions of the rates of 
vibration of musical sounds ; 1 to 2 (octave), 2 to 3 (fifth), 3 to 4 
(fourth), and so on, up to a certain point, when the harmony fades 
away into discord. The harmonious adjustment of sounds in 
succession (melody), and in concurrence (harmony proper), is 
musical composition, to which are added other effects of Time, 
Emphasis, &c. The pleasures of harmony are well known, but 
they somewhat transcend the simple sensations, and trench upon 
the sphere of the higher emotions, under which some farther notice 
will be taken of them. 

6. The more Intellectual sensations of sound are prin- 
cipally those connected with perceiving Articulatencts, 



INTELLECTUAL SENSATIONS OF SOUND. 65 

Distance, and Direction. Eeference may also be made to 
Clearness and Timbre. 

Clearness. This is another name for purity, and implies that 
a sound should stand out distinct, instead of being choked 
and encumbered with confusing ingredients. Both the plea- 
sure of music, and the perception of meaning, are involved in 
the clearness of the sounds. We have already surmised that 
the primitive sweetness of sounds may be involved with their 
purity, and so with their clearness ; silver and glass are re- 
markable for both the sweetness and the purity of their tones. 

Timbre, Complexion, or Quality. Different materials, in- 
struments, and voices, although uttering the same note, with 
the same intensity, yet affect the ear differently, so as to be 
recognized as distinct. This is called the timbre or speciality 
of the instrument. Certain experiments made by Helmholtz 
profess to explain this difference, and, along with it, the differ- 
ence of vowel quality in articulate sounds. 

Articulate sounds. The discrimination of these is the 
foundation of speech. 

The consonants in general are distinguished through the 
characteristic shock given by them severally to the ear. The 
hissing sound of s, the burring of r, the hum of m, are well marked 
modes of producing variety of effect. We can understand how 
each should impart a different kind of shock to the nerve of hear- 
ing. So we can see a reason for distmguishing the abrupt sounds 
p, t, k, from the continuous or vocal sounds b, d, and g, and from 
the same sounds with the nasal accompaniment m, n, ng. It is 
not quite so easy to explain the distinction of shock between the 
labials, dentals, and gutturals ; still, if we compare p (labial), 
with k (guttural), we can suppose that the stroke that gives the 
k is in some way harder than the other. 

Much greater difficulty attaches to the vowel sounds, which 
differ only in the mode of opening the mouth while the sound is 
emitted. Helmholtz lays it down, as the result of numerous ex- 
periments, that vowel sounds contain, besides the ground-tone, a 
number of upper-tones, or by-tones, with double, triple, &c, the 
number of vibrations of the ground-tone ; and are distinguished, 
or have their peculiar character, according to the nature of the 
accompaniments in each case. Willis and Cagniard-Latour con- 
trived modes of producing vowel sounds artificially ; and Helm- 
holtz, by making specific combinations of various simple tones, 
imitated all the vowel articulations. 

When the ground- tone is heard alone, the sound has the 
character of u (full). The o has, along with the ground-tone, the 
next octave audibly combined. The a (ah) is characterized by the 
marked presence of the very high octaves. 



56 SENSE OF HEARING. 

Distance. This is judged of entirely by intensity, and is 
ascertainable only for known sounds. The same sound is 
feebler as it is remote, and we infer accordingly. Where we 
have no opportunities of comparing a sound at different known 
distances, our judgment is at fault, as with the thunder, and 
with the roar of cannon. It being an effect of distance to 
make sounds fade away into a feeble hum, if we encounter 
a sound whose natural quality is feeble, as the humming of the 
bee, we are ready to imagine it more distant than it is. 

Direction. We have no primitive sense of direction ; it is 
an acquired perception, based on our discrimination of the in- 
tensity and the clearness of sounds. In certain positions of the 
head, the same sound is stronger than in others ; the direction 
most favourable being no doubt the straightest, or the line of 
the passage of the outer ear. 

Let us consider first the case of listening with a single 
ear. When the turning of the head makes a sound less loud 
and distinct, w r e conclude that it has passed out of the direct 
line of the ear, or a direction at right angles to that side of 
the head. When another movement brings it into greater 
distinctness, we conclude that it was at first away from that 
direction. 

The combined action of the two ears materially aids the 
perception. The concurrence of the greatest possible effect 
on the right ear with the least on the left ear, is a token that 
the sound is on our right hand; an equal effect on both ears 
shows it to be before or behind. At best, the sense of direc- 
tion of sounds is not delicate. We cannot easily find out a 
skylark in the air from its note ; nor can we tell the precise 
spot of a noise in a large apartment. 

SENSE OF SIGHT. 

1. The Objects of Sight are nearly all material bodies. 

Bodies at a certain high temperature are self-luminous ; 
as flame, red-hot iron, &c. : the celestial lights being supposed 
analagous. Other bodies, as the greater number of terrestrial 
surfaces, the moon and the planets, are visible only by re- 
flexion from such as are self-luminous. 

2. The Organ of Sight, the Eye, is a compound optical 
lense in communication with a sensitive surface. 



COATS OF THE EYE-BALL. 57 

Besides the structures composing the globe of the eye, there 
ure various important accessory parts. The eye-hroivs are thick 
arched ridges, surmounting the orbit, and acted on by muscles, so 
as to constitute part of the expression of the face. The eye-lids 
are the two thin moveable folds that screen the eye ; the upper is 
the larger and more moveable, having a muscle for the purpose. 
The length of the opening varies in different persons, and gives 
the appearance of a large or a small eye. The lids are close to the 
ball at the outer angle ; but a small red body (lachrymal caruncle) 
intervenes at the inner angle ; and near this body the lachrymal 
ducts pierce both eye-lids. The lachrymal apparatus consists of (1) 
the gland for secreting the tears at the upper corner of the outer 
side of the orbit ; (2) the two canals for receiving the fluid in the 
inner side of the orbit ; and (3) the sac, with the duct continued 
from it, through which the tears pass to the nose. The tears are 
secreted by the lachrymal gland, and poured out from the eye-lids 
upon the eye-ball; the washings afterwards running into the lach- 
rymal sac, and thence away by the nose. 

The globe or ball of the eye is placed in the fore -part of the 
cavity of the orbit ; it is fixed there by the optic nerve behind, 
and by the muscles with the eye-lids in front, but with freedom 
to change its position. The form of the ball is round but irregular, 
as if a small piece were cut off from a larger ball, and a segment 
of a smaller laid on; the smaller segment is the projecting trans- 
parent part seen in front. Except under certain influences, the 
two eyes look nearly in the same direction ; otherwise expressed 
by saying, their axes are nearly parallel. 

. The eye-ball consists of three investing membranes, making up 
the shell, and of three transparent masses, called its humours, 
which constitute it an optic lense. External to it in front, is a thin 
transparent membrane called the conjunctiva, a mere appendage 
arising out of the continuation of the lining mucous membrane 
of the eye-lids. The red streaks in the white of the eye are its 
blood-vessels. 

The outer investing membrane or tunic is called the sclerotic, 
and is a strong, opaque, unyielding fibrous structure ; on it depend 
the shape and the firmness of the ball. It extends over the whole 
of the larger sphere to the junction of the smaller in front. Its con- 
tinuation, or substitute, in the clear bulging part of the eye is the 
cornea, which is equally firm, but transparent. The sclerotic is 
about four-fifths of the shell ; the cornea, one-fifth. 

Next the sclerotic is the choroid coat, a membrane of a black or 
deep brown colour, lining the chamber of the eye up to the union 
of the sclerotic and cornea. It is composed of various layers. 
Outside are two layers of capillary blood-vessels, veins and arteries. 
Inside is the layer containing the black pigment, which it is the 
object of the numerous blood-vessels to supply. The pigment is 
enclosed in cells, about the thousandth of an inch in diameter, 
and closely packed together. 



58 SENSE OF SIGHT. 

The retina, or the nervous eoat, lies upon the choroid, but does 
not extend so far forward. It is transparent, with a reddish 
colour, owing to its blood-vessels. In its centre is a small, oval, 
yellow spot, ry- inch long, *$ inch wide ; the centre of this is a 
thinner portion of the retina called the central hole. The retina 
consists of various layers. Beginning at the fore part, in contact 
with the back lense of the eye, we find a transparent membrane 
called the limiting membrane, not more than ito.oifo inch in thick- 
ness. Next are the ramifications of the optic nerve, fine meshes of 
nerve fibres, exceedingly minute ;. the average diameter not more 
than Foroooinch, while some are less than tooTooo inch. Behind 
this is a layer of nerve cells, resembling the cells of the grey matter 
of the brain. Next is a granular layer, of fine grains or nuclei, 
with exceedingly minute filaments perpendicular to the retina. 
Lastly, comes the bacillarl&yer, made up of closely-packed per- 
pendicular rods, transparent and colourless, about j0§$ inch long, 
and 3070 0- thick. Interspersed with these are larger rods called 
cones, 25V0 of an inch in diameter. By these larger and smaller 
rods, is effected the junction of the retina with the choroid ; six or 
eight of the cones, and a large number of the smaller rods grouped 
round them, enter each pigment cell. The rods are themselves in 
connexion with the nerve fibres and nerve cells of the retina, 
through the fine perpendicular filaments. All the elements of the 
retina are most abundant and close in the yellow spot or its 
vicinitv, where vision is most distinct. 

To complete the account of the investing membranes of the 
eye, we must allude to certain structures continuous with the 
choroid coat, at the junction of the sclerotic with the cornea. 
Three distinct bands are found here; a series of dark radiated 
folds, called the ciliary processes ; a band or ligament connecting 
the choroid with the iris, called the ciliary ligament; and, behind 
the ciliary ligament, and covering the outside of the ciliary pro- 
cesses, the ciliary muscle, a muscle of great importance. The iris 
is the round curtain in front of the eye, with a central hole the 
pupil, for the admission of light. It is attached all round at the 
junction of the sclerotic and cornea, and may be considered a 
modified prolongation of the choroid. The anterior surface is 
coloured and marked by lines, indicating a fibrous structure. The 
fibres are muscular, and of two classes, circular and radiating ; 
their contraction diminishes or widens the pupil of the eye, accord- 
ing to the intensity of the light. 

Next as to the Humours, or lenses of the eye. The aqueous 
humour, in front, is a clear watery liquid lying under the cornea, 
and bounded by the next humour, the crystalline lens, and its 
attachments to the ciliary process. The vitreous humour, behind, 
occupies the whole posterior chamber of the eye, about two-thirds 
of the whole. It is a clear thin fluid enclosed in membrane, 
which radiates into the interior like the partitions of an orange, 
without reaching the central line where the rays of light traverse 



MUSCLES OP THE EYE. 59 

the eye. In shape, it has the convexity of the eye behind; while 
there is a deep cup-shaped depression for receiving the crystalline 
lens in front. The crystalline lens is a transparent solid lens, in 
form double convex, but more rounded behind than before. It is 
suspended between the two other humours by the membrane of 
the vitreous humour, attaching it to the ciliary processes. 

The eye is moved by six muscles, four recti, or straight, and 
two called oblique. The four recti muscles arise from the bony 
socket in which the eye is placed, around the opening where the 
optic nerve enters from the brain ; and are all inserted in the ante- 
rior external surface of the eyeball, their attachments being 
respectively on the upper, under, outer, and inner edges of the 
sclerotic. The superior oblique, or trochlear, muscle arises close by 
the origin of the superior straight muscle, and passes forward to 
a loop of cartilage ; its tendon passes through the loop, and is 
reflected back, and inserted on the upper posterior surface of the 
eyeball. The inferior oblique muscle arises from the internal 
inferior angle of the fore part of the orbit, and is inserted into the 
external inferior surface of the eyeball,, behind the middle of the 
ball. 

The sweep of the eye in all directions arises from the movements 
of these muscles singly, or in combination. Most, if not all, the 
movements might be caused by the four straight muscles, but the 
others come into play, whenever they are able to facilitate any 
desired movement. 

3. The mode of action of the eye involves, in the first 
place, an optical effect. 

When the eye is directed to any object, as a tree, the rays 
of light, entering the pupil, are so refracted by the combined 
operation of the humours, as to form an inverted image on 
the back of the eye, where the transparent retina adjoins the 
choroid coat. The precise mode of stimulating the nervous 
filaments of the retina is not understood - T but we must presume 
that the pigment cells of the choroid play an important part, 
being: themselves acted on by the light. 

The image must be formed, by the due convergence of the 
rays, exactly on the retina, and not before or behind. When 
an object is looked at too near, the convergence of the rays is 
behind the retina, and not upon it. The limits of distance, 
for very distinct vision, may be stated at from five to ten 
inches for the majority of persons. 

There is a natural barrier to the power of minute vision ; 
we can distinguish very minute lines and points, but there is 
a degree of minuteness that cannot be discerned. This limit 
is the limit of the fineness of the meshes of the retina about 
the yellow spot. It would seem necessary that every separate 



60 SENSE OF SIGHT. 

nerve, filament, and nerve cell should take a distinct impres- 
sion. 

There is a certain power of adjustment of the eye-ball to 
render vision distinct at varying distances. If an object 
is seen elearly at six inches off, all objects nearer and farther 
will seem indistinct; the convergence of their rays will be 
behind or before the retina. But, by a change in the eye-ball, 
more distant objects will become distinct, the near becoming 
indistinct. The ciliary muscle is the means of effecting this 
change : for near vision it contracts^ and, in contracting, com- 
presses the vitreous humour^ and pushes forward the crystal- 
line lens, pressing more upon the edges than on the middle, 
and thus increasing its curvature ; the optical result is a more 
rapid convergence of the rays of light, whereby the image is 
advanced from behind the retina to an exact coincidence with 
the retina. For distant vision, the muscle relaxes, and the 
elasticity of the parts restores the shape of the lens. This 
adjustment suits a range of from four inches to three feet. 

4. The two eyes, instead of presenting two perfectly 
distinct pictures of the same thing, conspire to render the 
single picture more complete. This is Binocular vision. 

When both eyes are fixed on a near object, as a cubical 
box, held within a few inches of the face, each sees a different 
aspect of it ; the dissimilarity is greater the nearer it is, and 
becomes less as it is more remote, there being a certain dis- 
tance where the two pictures seem identical. Such explanation 
as can be given of this fact belongs to a later stage ; but it is 
here mentioned as involving a farther adjustment to distance, 
namely, the convergence of the two eyes for near distances, 
their parallelism for great distances. 

From misapprehending the process of vision, a difficulty has 
been started as to our seeing objects erect by means of an inverted 
image in the retina. The solution is found in the remark that the 
estimate of up and down is not optical but muscular ; up is what 
we raise the eyes or the head to see. 

5. The Sensations of Sight are partly Optical, the effect 
of light on the retina ; and partly Muscular, from the 
action of the six muscles. We can scarcely have a sen- 
sation without both kinds. 

The Optical sensations are Light, Colour, and Lustre, 

Light. The effect of mere light, without colour, may be 
exemplified in the diffused solar radiance. This is a Pleasure, 



SENSATION OF LIGHT. 61 

acute, or voluminous, according as the source is a dazzling 
point, or a moderate and wide- spread illumination. The Spe- 
ciality of the pleasure is the endurability without fatigue, in 
which respect, sight ranks highest of all the senses, and the 
same cause renders it the most intellectual. The influence, 
although powerful for pleasure, is yet so gentle, that it can be 
sustained in presence and recalled in absence to a distinguish- 
ing degree. Whence, as a procuring cause of human and 
animal pleasure, light occupies a high position; there being 
a corresponding misery in privation. 

The intense pleasure of the first exposure after confine- 
ment can last only a short time ; but the influence, in a 
modified degree, remains much longer. After excess, a 
peculiar depression is felt, accompanied with morbid wakeful- 
ness and craving for shade. One of the cruellest of tortures 
was the barbarian device of cutting off the eye-lids, and 
exposing the eyes to the glare of the sun. 

As regards Volition, the pleasures of light observe the 
general rule of prompting us to act for their continuance and 
increase. But this does not express the whole fact. There 
is a well-known fascination in the glare of light, a power to 
detain the gaze of the eye even after the point of pleasure has 
been passed. We have here a disturbance of the proper 
function of the will, of which there are other examples, to 
be afterwards pointed out. 

The Intellectual property of the sensations of sight has 
been already adduced as their speciality. They admit of being 
discriminated and remembered to a degree beyond any other 
sense, being approached only by hearing. It is possible that 
a well- endowed ear may be more discriminative and tenacious 
of sounds, than a feebly-endowed eye of sights, but, by the 
general consent, sight is placed above hearing in regard to 
intellectual attributes. 

By the Law of Eelativit}^, the pleasures of light demand 
remission and alternation ; hence the art of distributing light 
and shade. The quantity received, on the whole, may be too 
much, as in sunny climates, or too little, as in the regions of 
prevailing fogs. 

Colour. This is an additional effect of light, serving to 
extend the optical pleasures, as well as the knowledge, of 
mankind. The pure white ray is decomposable into certain 
primary colours, and the presentation of these separately and 
successively, in the proportions that constitute the solar beam, 
imparts a new pleasurable excitement, having all the attri- 



62 SENSE OF SIGHT. 

butes of the pleasure of mere light. There is no absolute 
beauty in any single colour ; when we give a preference 
to red, or blue, or yellow, it is owing to a deficiency as 
regards that colour, in the general scene. As a rule, the 
balance of colour, in our experience, is usually in favour of 
the blue end of the spectrum, and hence red, and its com- 
pounds, are a refreshing alternation. 

Lustre, Some surfaces are said to have lustre, glitter, or 
brilliancy. This is a complex effect of light. A colour seen 
through a transparent covering is lustrous, as the pebbles in 
a clear rivulet. There is also a lustrous effect in a jet black 
surface, if it reflects the light. This luminous reflection, 
superadded to the proper visibility of the surface, is the cause 
of lustre. Transparent surfaces reflect light, like a mirror, as 
well as transmit the colour beneath ; and this multiplication 
of luminous effects adds to the pleasure. The many-sided 
sparkle of the cut crystal, or gem, is a favourite mode of 
giving brilliancy ; the broken glitter is more agreeable than 
a continuous sheet of illumination. 

The highest beauty of visible objects is obtained by lustre. 
The precious gems are recommended by it. The finer woods yield 
it by polish and varnish. The painter's colours are naturally dead, 
and he superadds the transparent film. This property redeems 
the privation of colour, as in the lustrous black. The green leaf 
is often adorned by it, through the addition of moisture. Possibly 
much of the refreshing influence of greenness in vegetation is due 
to lustrous greenness. Animal tissues present the effect in a high 
degree. Ivory, mother of pearl, bone, silk, and wool, are of the 
class of brilliant or glittering substances. The human skin is a 
combination of richness of colouring with lustre. The hair is 
beautiful in a great measure from its brilliancy. The finest 
example is the eye ; the deep black of the choroid, and the 
colours of the iris, are liquified by the transparency of the 
humours. 

6. The sensations involving the Muscular Movements 
of the eye are visible movement, visible form, apparent 
size, distance, volume, and situation. 

Visible Movement The least complicated example of the 
muscular feelings of sight is the following a moving object, 
as a light carried across a room. The eye rotates, as the light 
moves, and the mental effect is a complex sensation of light and 
movement. If the flame moves to the right, the right muscles 
contract ; if to the left, the left muscles ; and so on ; there 
being different muscles, or combinations of muscles, engaged 



VISIBLE MOVEMENT. 63 

for every different direction. Instead of following a straight 
conrse, the light may change its direction to a bend or a 
curve. This varies the muscular combinations, and their 
relative pace of contraction ; whence results a distinguishable 
mode of consciousness. 

Thus it is, that one and the same optical effect, as a candle- 
flame or a spark, may be imbedded in a great variety of mus- 
cular effects, every one of which is distinguished from the rest, 
and characteristically remembered. The embodiment must be 
contained in the numerous nerve centres and nerve communi- 
cations related to the muscles of the eye. 

As with the muscles generally, we can distinguish, by the 
muscles of the eye, longer or shorter continuance of movement. 
We can thus estimate, in the first place, duration ; and, in the 
second (under certain conditions), visual or apparent exten- 
sion. In like manner, we are conscious of degrees of speed or 
velocity of movement, which also serves as an indirect measure 
of visible extension. The kind of muscular sensibility that, 
from the nature of the case, cannot belong to the eye, is the 
feeling of Eesistance or dead strain, there being nothing to 
constitute a resisting obstacle to the rotation of the ball, 
except its own very small inertia. Hence the eye, with all its 
wide-ranging and close- searching capabilities, cannot be said 
to contribute to the fundamental consciousness of the object 
universe, the feeling of resistance. 

The various pleasures of movement, formerly recited, ap- 
pertain to moving spectacle. The massive, languid feeling of 
slow movements, the excitement of a rapid pace, the pleasures 
of waxing and waning movements (the beauty of the curve), 
can be realized through vision. 

Among the permanent imagery of the intellect, recalled, 
combined, and finally dwelt upon, we are to include visible 
movements. The familiar motions of natural objects — running 
streams, waving boughs, &c. ; the characteristic movements of 
animals, the movements and gestures of human beings, the 
moving machinery and processes of industry — are distinguished 
and remembered by us, and form part of our intellectual 
furniture. 

Visible Form. This supposes objects in stillness, surveyed 
in outline by the eye, and introduces us to co-existence in 
Space, as contrasted with succession in Time. With regard 
to the mere fact of muscular movement, it is the same thing 
for the eye to trace the outline of the rainbow, as to follow 
the flight of a bird, or a rocket. But, as in the case of Touch, 



64 SENSE OF SIGHT. 

already considered, the accessary circumstances make a 
radical difference, and amount to the contrast of succession 
with co-existence. The points of distinction are these : — (1) 
In following the outline of the rainbow, we are not con- 
strained to any one pace of movement, as with a bird, or a 
projectile. (2) The optical impression is not one, but a 
series, which may be a repetition of the same, as the rainbow, 
or different as the landscape. (3) We may repeat the move- 
ment, and find the same series, in the same order. (4) 
We can, by an inverted movement, obtain the series in an 
inverted order. These two experiences— repetition and in- 
version — stamp a peculiar character of fixity of expectation, 
which belongs to our idea of the extended and co-existing 
in space, as opposed to passing movement. (5) As regards 
sight in particular when compared with touch, the power of 
the eye to embrace at one glance a wide prospect, although 
minutely perceiving only a small portion, confirms the same 
broad distinction, between the starry sky and the transitory 
flight of a meteor. When a series of sensations can be simul- 
taneously grasped, although with unequal distinctness, this 
gives, in a peculiar manner, the notion of plurality of existence, 
as opposed to continued single existence. 

The course moved over by the eye in scanniag an outline, 
leaves a characteristic muscular trace, corresponding to the 
visible form. Thus we have Linear forms — straight, crooked, 
curved, in all varieties of curvature ; Superficial forms and 
outlines — round, square, oval, &c. The visible objects of the 
world are thus distinguished, identified and retained in the 
mind as experiences of optical sensation embedded in ocular 
movements ; and we have a class of related feelings, pleasure- 
able and otherwise, the same as with visible movements. Our 
intellectual stores comprise a great m altitude of visible forms. 

Apparent Size. The apparent size or visible magnitude 
embraces two facts, an optical and a muscular. The optical 
fact is the extent of the retina covered by the image, called by 
Wheatstone the retinal magnitude ; the muscular fact is the 
muscular sweep of the eye requisite to compass it. These two 
estimates coincide ; they are both reducible to angular extent, 
or the proportion of the surface to an entire sphere. The 
apparent diameter of the sun, and of the full moon, is half a 
degree, or j^ of the circumference of the circle of the sky. 
This combined estimate, by means of two very sensitive 
organs — the retina and the ocular muscles, renders our esti- 
mate of apparent size remarkably delicate ; being, in fact, the 



VISIBLE MAGNITUDE, — DISTANCE, 65 

universal basis of all accurate estimate of quantity. In 
measuring other properties of bodies, as real magnitude, 
weight, heat, &c, we reduce each case to a comparison of two 
visible magnitudes ; such are the tests of a three-foot rule, a 
balance, a thermometer. 

The fluctuations of apparent size in the same thing — a 
remote building for example — are appreciated with corres- 
ponding delicacy ; and when we come to know that these 
fluctuations are caused by change of real distance, we use 
them as our most delicate indication of degrees of remoteness. 

The celestial bodies are conceived by us solely under their 
apparent or visible size. Terrestrial objects all vary in visible 
size, and are pictured by the mind under a more or less per- 
fect estimate of real size. 

Distance, or varying remoteness. We have as yet supposed 
visible movement and form in only two dimensions, or as ex- 
tending horizontally and vertically. The circumstance of vary- 
ing remoteness, necessary to volume, or three dimensions, de- 
mands a separate handling. We must leave out, at this stage, 
the knowledge of real distance, as well as real magnitude. 

There are two adaptations, or adjustments, of the eyes for 
distance ; a change in the ball for near distances, and a con- 
vergence or divergence of the two eyes for a wider range. 
Both changes are muscular; they are accompanied with a 
consciousness of activity, or the contraction of muscles. The 
change made, in each eye-ball, for a nearer distance is a con- 
scious change ; the return from that is also conscious. The 
gradual convergence or divergence of the two eyes is accom- 
panied with a discriminative muscular consciousness. We can 
thus, by muscularity, discriminate (although not as yet know- 
ing the whole meaning of) bodies moving away from the eye, 
or approaching nearer it. An object moving across the field 
of view is distinguished from the same object retreating or 
advancing ; distinct muscles being brought into play. We 
may, likewise, have the emotional effects of slow, quick, or 
waning movements, by change of distance from the eye. As 
a general rule, there is a relief in passing from a near view to 
a distant. 

We have seen, under the previous head, that variation of 
optical size accompanies variation of distance, and is the most 
delicate test of all. To this we have to add the oinooular 
dissimilarity, which is at the maximum for near distances, and 
is nothing for great remoteness. There are thus four separate 
circumstances engaged in making us aware of any alteration 
5 



66 SENSE OF SIGHT. 

of the distance of objects from the eye. A fifth will be stated 
afterwards. The importance of this powerful combination 
will appear at an after stage, when the visual perceptions of 
real distance and real size are nnder consideration. 

Visible Movements and Visible Forms in three dimensions: 
Volume. Applying the discrimination of Distance to visible 
movements and visible forms, we can take cognizance of 
these in all the three dimensions of space. A ship, instead of 
simply crossing the field of view, partly crosses and partly 
moves off; in which case, we combine the lateral movements 
of the eye with the various adjustments and effects of distance ; 
we distinguish the appearance of movement without altera- 
tion of distance, from alteration of distance without lateral 
movement, and from other combinations of the two. 

So with visible forms in three dimensions, as the vista of 
a street. In examining this object, we move the eyes and the 
head right and left, up and down ; and also make conscious 
adjustments for distance, finding that these are the remedy 
for the picture's being confused in certain parts. The feeling 
of the picture is thus a compound of lateral movements, ad- 
justments, and changes of optical magnitude in the things 
observed. 

In every solid form, as a book, a table, a house, this altera- 
tion of adjustment enters into the movements of the eye in 
tracing out the form. Visible solidity, or volume, is thus a 
highly complex perception, involving optical impressions, with 
a series of muscular movements, lateral and adjusting. Each 
different solid combines these in a characteristic way ; cube, 
oblong, sphere, cylinder, human figure — are all distinguished 
and remembered as distinct. 

Visible Situation, Visible situation is made up of the 
elements now described. It is the visible interval between 
one thing and some other thing or things, measured either 
laterally, or in visible remoteness. The situation of a human 
figure, with reference to a pillar, is right or left, up or down, 
near or far, and at definite visible intervals. 



THE APPETITES. 67 



CHAPTER III. 

THE APPETITES. 

The Appetites are a select class of Sensations; they 
may be defined as the uneasy feelings produced by the recur- 
ring wants or necessities of the organic system. 

Appetite involves volition or action ; now volition demands 
a motive or stimulus ; and the stimulus of Appetite is some 
sensation. All sensations, however, that operate on the will 
are not appetites. The commonly recognized appetites grow 
out of the periodic or recurring wants of the organic system ; 
they are Sleep, Exercise, Repose, Thirst, Hunger, Sex. 

Sleep. The two conditions, namely, periodic recurrence, 
and organic necessity, are well exemplified in sleep. The 
natural course of the system brings on sleep, without our 
willing it ; and its character as an appetite, or craving, 
appears when it is resisted. A massive form of uneasiness 
is then felt ; the will is urged to remove this uneasiness, and 
to obtain the corresponding voluminous pleasure of falling 
asleep ; which volitional urgency is the appetite. 

Exercise and Repose. Within the waking state, there is an 
alternation of exercise and repose, essential to a sound organic 
condition ; and this is accompanied with cravings. After rest, 
the refreshed organs start into exercise ; the withholding of 
this causes physical discomfort, which is the motive to burst 
forth into activity. Mere spontaneity sets us on ; any ob- 
struction urges the will to take steps for its removal ; this is 
the working of appetite. Similar observations apply to 
Hepose. 

The alternation of exercise with repose is sought through- 
out all our activities, bodily and mental. In the use of our 
different organs, whether muscles or senses, in the employ- 
ment of the brain in intellectual functions, there is a point 
where the tendency to repose sets in, and where resistance 
occasions appetite. 

Thirst, Inanition, Hunger. The cravings under these 
states show the twofold operation of Appetite — the massive 
uneasiness of privation, and the equally massive pleasure 
of gratification, whose combined motive power makes the 



68 THE INSTINCTS. 

strength of the volition or appetite. Besides these general 
cravings growing np nnder deliciency of nourishment, we are 
said to have artificial cravings, for special foods, condiments, 
and stimulants, that we have found agreeable, and have 
become accustomed to : for example, sweets, alcoholic drinks, 
tea, tobacco, &c. 

The craving for pure air, after closeness and confinement, 
strictly conforms to the general definition of appetite. 

Sex. The appetite that brings the sexes together is founded 
on peculiar secretions, periodically arising in the system after 
puberty, and creating an uneasiness until discharged or ab- 
sorbed. The organic necessity here is of a less imperious 
kind, and the motive power lies most in the delight of 
gratification. 

The habitual routine of life, if in any way crossed, is a 
species of appetite. Uneasiness is caused by any thwarting 
circumstance, while the compliance may be, of itself, either 
pleasurable or indifferent. 



CHAPTEE IV. 
THE INSTINCTS. 

The account now given of the sensations is a sufficient 
preparation for entering on the Intellect. Nevertheless, it 
is convenient to comprise, in the present book, a view r of 
the instinctive arrangements related both to Feeling and 
to Volition; for upon these also are based many intel- 
lectual growths. 

Instinct is defined as untaught ability. It is the name 
given to what can be done prior to experience or education ; 
as sucking in the child, walking on all fours by the newly- 
dropped calf, pecking by the bird just emerged from its shell, 
the maternal attentions of animals generally. 

In all the three regions of mind — Feeling, Volition, and 
Intellect — there is of necessity a certain primordial structure, 
the foundation of all our powers. There are also certain 
arrangements, not usually included in mind, that yet are in 
close alliance and continuity with mental actions — as, for 



LOCOMOTIVE RHYTHM. 69 

example, swallowing the food. The following subjects are 
exhaustive of the department : — 

1. The Reflex Actions. 

2. The Combined and Harmonious Movements. 

3. The Primitive Manifestations of Feeling. 

4. The Germs of Volition. 

The Reflex Actions have already been described under the 
functions of the Spinal Cord and Medulla Oblongata. 

THE PRIMITIVE COMBINED MOVEMENTS. 

1. Of the primitive arrangements for Combining Move- 
ments in Aggregation, or in Succession, the most Promi- 
nent example is the locomotive rhythm. 

In the inferior quadrupeds, this is manifestly instinctive. 
The calf, the foal, the lamb, can walk the day they are 
dropped. Although human beings are unable to walk for 
many months after birth, there are reasons for the fact, in the 
unconsolidated state of the bones, in the immature condition 
of the human infant generally, and in the special difficulty of 
maintaining the erect posture. It is still probable that man 
has an instinctive tendency to alternate the movements of the 
lower limbs. The analogy of the quadrupeds is in favour of 
this view, and it is a matter of observation that infants in the 
arms are disposed to throw out their limbs in alternation. 

2. The Locomotive Ehythm may be analyzed into three 
distinct combinations. 

First, it involves the reciprocation of each limb separately ; 
or the tendency to vibrate to and fro, by the alternate sti- 
mulus of the two opposing sets of muscles. In walking, the 
flexor and the extensor muscles have to be contracted by 
turns ; the pendulous movement being also partly aided by 
gravity. It may easily be supposed that the nervous con- 
nexion of these opposing sets of muscles is made on a general 
plan throughout the body ; as no continuous exertion is pos- 
sible without replacing each member in the position that it 
starts from. On this assumption, the swing of all the organs 
would be the result of a primitive arrangement. 

Secondly. There must be an alternate movement of corre- 
sponding limbs. The right and left: members must move, not 
together, but by turns. For this, too, there is needed a pri- 
mitive nervous arrangement availing itself of the commissural 



70 THE INSTINCTS. 

nervous connexions of the two sides of the body. The effect 
is not exclusively confined to the limbs ; the arms and the 
entire trunk join in the alternation. We shall see presently 
that there are important exceptions. 

Thirdly. The locomotion of quadrupeds involves a farther 
arrangement for alternating the fore and hind limbs. In rep- 
tiles, worms, &c, there is a progressive contraction from one 
end of the body to the other. The successive segments of the 
body are united in their action by an appropriate nervous 
connexion. Ifc is hardly to be expected that any trace of this 
should appear in man, so rare are the occasions for it. Still, 
we may remark the great readiness to alternate arms and 
legs, in climbing, and in rowing a boat. 

3. We find in the human system examples of primitive 
associated movements. 

The chief example is furnished by the two eyes. We cannot, 
if we would, prevent them from moving together. The only 
interference with this tendency is the act of converging 
them in the adjustment for distance. 

There is also in the eyes an associated action between the 
iris and the inward movement of the eyeball for near vision. 
In near vision, the iris is always contracted. 

The association of the two sides of the body, in common 
movements, extends to the eyelids and the features, although 
there is a possibility of disassociating these, or of distorting 
the face. We find also a considerable proneness to move the 
arms together, as may be seen plainly in children. 

4. The different moving members tend to harmony of 
pace. 

Any one organ quickly moved imparts quickness to the rest 
of tbe movements ; rapid speech induces rapid gesticulation ; 
the spectacle of hurried action has an exciting effect. So, by 
inducing a slow pace on any member, we impart a quieting 
influence throughout : slow speech is accompanied with 
languid gestures. This principle indicates a medium whereby 
our actions are brought under control. 

THE INSTINCTIVE PLAY OF FEELING. 

1. The union of mind and body is specially shown in 
the Instinctive play or Expression of the Feelings. 

It is one of the oldest and most familiar experiences of 
the human race, that the several feelings have characteristic 



EXPRESSION OF THE FACE. 71> 

bodily accompaniments. Joy, sorrow, fear, anger, pride, have 
each their distinct manifestations, sometimes called their 
natural language, the same in all ages and in all peoples. 
Ibis points to certain primitive or instinctive connexions be- 
tween the mental and the bodily processes. 

2, The bodily accompaniments of the Feelings are of 
two classes- — Movements, and Organic effects. The Face 
and features are most susceptible to movement under 
feeling ; hence the face is by pre-eminence the index to 
the mind. 

The movements of the Face have been analyzed by Sir 
Charles Bell. 

The muscles of the face, by means of which its expression is 
governed, are arranged round the /three centres, — the mouth, the 
nose, tae eyes. 

The expression of the Eyes is due chiefly to the movements of 
the eyebrow, under the action of two muscles. The one (occipito- 
frontalisj is the broad thin muscle of the scalp, and extends down 
the forehead to the eyebrows ; its action being to raise them in 
cheerful expression. The other muscle fcorrugator of the eye- 
hroivsj parses across from one eyebrow to the other, and, when in 
action, knts the brows as in frowning; indirectly it lowers them 
in oppositbn to the scalp muscle. 

Expression in a smaller degree attaches to the movements 
of the eyelids. The lids are closed by the orbicular muscle, 
or sphincter of the eyes. They are opened by the elevating 
muscle of the upper eyelid (levator palpebral J ; the rapid action 
of which under strong emotion gives the effect of a flash of the 
eye. 

The Nose is moved by three small muscles and one large. The 
pyramidal is a small muscle lying on the nasal bone, or upper half 
of the nose, and appears to be a continuation of the scalp muscle ; 
it wrinkles %he skin at the root of the nose. The compressor of the 
nose is a thin small muscle running transverse, on the lower part 
of the nose, but, instead of compressing the nose as the name indi- 
cates, it expands the nostril, by raising the cartilages. The 
depressor of the wing of the nose is a small flat muscle lying deep 
in the upper lip ; according to its name it would be opposed to the 
preceding. 

No very conspicuous manifestation is due to any one of these 
three muscles ; the expansion of the nostril by the second is per- 
haps the most marked effect. The most notable expression 
attaches to the common elevator of the lip and nose. This muscle 
lies along the side and wing of the nose, extending from the orbit 
of the eye to the upper lip. It raises the wing of the nose and 
the upper lip together ; it is thoroughly under the command of 



72 THE INSTINCTS, 

the will, and produces a very marked contortion of feature, 
wrinkling the nose and raising the upper lip. In expressing dis- 
gust at a bad smell, it is readily brought into play, and is thence 
used in expressing repugnance generally. 

The mouth is moved by one orbicular muscle, and by eight 
pairs radiating from it round the face. The orbicular (orbicularis 
oris J is composed of concentric fibres surrounding the opening of 
the mouth, but not continued from one lip to another. 

The eight radiating pairs may be enumerated in order from 
above, round to beneath, as follows : — 

(1) The proper elevator of the upper lip extends from the lower 
border of the orbit of the eye to the upper lip, lying close to the 
border of the common elevator of lip and nose. When the lip is 
raised without raising the nose, which is not a very easy act, this 
muscle is the instrument. (2) The elevator of the angle of the Qiouth 
lies beneath the preceding, and partly concealed by it. (3, 4) 
The zygomatics are two narrow bands of muscular fibres, extending 
obliquely from the cheek bone to the angle of the mouth, one 
being larger and longer than the other. In combination with the 
elevator of the angle of the mouth, they serve to retract the mouth, 
and curve it upwards in smiling. (5) The buccinator (or cheek 
muscle) is a thin, flat, broad muscle, occupying the interval be- 
tween the jaws. It is used in masticating the food ; it would also 
conspire with the zygomatics in drawing out the mouth in the 
pleasing expression. Proceeding to the lower region of the face, 
we have (6) the depressor of the angle of the mouth, extending from 
the angle of the mouth to the lower jaw, and acting ac3ording to 
its name. (7) The depressor of the lower lip is a small square 
muscle, lying partly underneath, and partly inside, the preceding. 
(8) The elevator of the lower lip arises from a slight pit below the 
teeth sockets of the lower jaw, and thence descends to the lower 
part of the integument of the chin, so as to raise the lower lip. 
The combined action of this muscle and the depressor cf the angle 
(6) is to curve the mouth downward, and pout the lower lip, a 
very marked expression of pain and displeasure. 

3. The Voice and the Respiratory muscles concur with 
the face in the expression of feeling. 

The proper organ of voice is the Larynx, with its vocal 
cords. Certain muscles operate in tightening, relaxing, and 
approximating the cords ; to produce sound, they must be' 
tightened and drawn together. But the exertion of the 
Laryngeal muscles is only a part of the case. The chest must 
act in a manner different from ordinary breathing, and force 
air more quickly through the air passages ; while, in articu- 
late utterance, the tongue and mouth have to co-operate. All 
these parts are actuated under feeling. In jo} r or exulta- 
tion, and in angor, energetic shouts are emitted ; in fear, 



0KGANIC ACCOMPANIMENTS OF FEELING. 73 

the voice trembles ; in acute pain, it gives forth sharp cries ; 
in sorrow, there is a languid drawling note. 

Irrespective of the play of the voice, the respiratory muscles 
are affected under emotion. In laughter, the diaphragm is 
convulsed ; in depressing emotion, the sigh shows that it is 
partially paralyzed. 

4. The muscles of the Body generally may be stimu- 
lated under strong feeling, 

Any great mental excitement is accompanied with agitation 
of the whole body ; the concurring nervous wave requires the 
larger organs to discharge itself upon. 

5. States of feeling have also Organic accompaniments, 
or influences on the viscera and the processes of secretion, 
excretion, &c. 

Probably no organ is exempted from participating in the 
embodiment of the feelings. 

(1) The Lachrymal Gland and Sac. The effusion of tears from 
the gland is steady and constant during waking hours. States 
of emotion, — tenderness, grief, excessive joy — cause the liquid to 
be secreted and poured out in large quantities, so as to moisten 
the eye, and overflow upon the cheek. By such outpouring, a re- 
lief is often experienced under oppressive pain, the physical cir- 
cumstance being apparently the discharging of the congested 
vessels of the brain. A strong sensibility undoubtedly lodges in 
the lachrymal organ, the proof of a high cerebral connexion. The 
ordinary and healthy flow of this secretion, when conscious, is 
connected with a comfortable and genial f eeling ; in the convul- 
sive sob, not only is the quantity profuse, but the quality would 
appear to be changed to a strong brine. 

(2) The Sexual Organs. These organs are both sources of feel- 
ing when directly acted on, and the recipients of influence from 
the brain under many states of feeling otherwise arising. They 
are a striking illustration of the fact that our emotions are not go- 
verned by the brain alone, but by that in cod junction with the 
other organs of the body. No cerebral change is known to arise 
with puberty ; nevertheless, a grand extension of the emotional 
susceptibilities takes place' at that season. Although the sexual 
organs may not receive their appropriate stimulation from without, 
the mere circumstance of their full development, as an additional 
echo to the nervous waves diffused from the cerebrum, alters the 
whole tone of the feelings of the mind, like the addition of a new 
range of pipes to a wind instrument. It is the contribution of a 
resonant as well as a sensitive part. 

(3) The Digestive Organs. These have been already fully described ; 
and their influence upon the mind has also been dwelt upon. 



74 THE INSTINCTS. 

In the present connexion, we have to advert more particularly to 
the reciprocal influence of the mind upon them. It may be 
doubted if any considerable emotion passes over us without telling 
upon the processes of digestion, either to quicken or to depress 
them. All the depressing and perturbing passions are known to 
take away appetite, to arrest the healthy action of the stomach, 
liver, bowels, &c. A hilarious excitement within limits, stimu- 
lates those functions ; although joy may be so intense as to pro- 
duce the perturbing effect ; in which case, however, it may be 
noted that the genuine charm or fascination is apt to give place to 
mere tumultuous passion. 

The influence of the feelings in Digestion is seen in a most 
palpable form in the process of salivation. In Fear, the mouth is 
parched by the suppression of the flow of the saliva r a precise 
analogy to what takes place with the gastric juice in the stomach. 

An equally signal example in the same connexion is the chok- 
ing sensation in the throat during a paroxysm of grief; The 
muscles of the pharynx, which are, as it were, the beginning of 
the muscular coat of the alimentary canal, are spasmodically con- 
tracted, instead of alternating in their due rhythm. The remark- 
able sensibility of this part during various emotions, is to be con- 
sidered as only a higher degree of the sensibility of the intestine 
generally. The sum of the whole effect is considerable in mass, 
although wanting in acuteness. In pleasurable emotion even, a 
titillation of the throat is sometimes perceptible. 

(4) The Skin. The cutaneous perspiration is liable to be acted 
on during strong feelings. The cold sweat from fear or depress- 
ing passion, is a sudden discharge from the sudorific glands of the 
skin. "VVe know, from the altered odour of the insensible or 
gaseous perspiration during strong excitement, how amenable the 
functions of the skin are to this cause. It may be presumed, on 
the other hand, that pleasurable elation exerts a genial influence 
on all those functions. 

A precisely similar line of remarks would apply to the Kidneys. 

(5) The Heart. The propulsive power of the heart's action 
varies with mental states as well with physical health and vigour. 
Some feelings are stimulants, and add to the power, while great 
pains, fright, and depression may reduce the action to any extent. 
Miiller remarks, that the disturbance of the heart is a proof 
of the great range of an emotional wave ; or its extending beyond 
the sphere of the cerebral nerves to parts affected by the sympa- 
thetic nerve. 

(6) The Lacteal Gland in women. Besides the &ve organs now 
enumerated as common to the two sexes, we must reckon the 
speciality of women, namely, the Secretion of the Milk. As in all 
the others, this secretion is genial, comfortable, and healthy, during 
some states of mind, while depressing passions check and poison 
it. Being an additional seat of sensibility, and an additional reson- 
ance to the diffused wave of feeling, this organ might be expected 
to render the female temperament a degree more emotional than 



PLEASURE CONCOMITANT WITH INCREASED VITALITY. 75 

the male, especially after child-bearing -has brought it into full 
play. 

6. The connexion of feelings with physical states may 
be summed up, for one large class of the facts 3 in the fol- 
lowing principle : — States of pleasure are concomitant with 
an increase, and states of pain with an abatement, of some, 
or all, of the vital functions. 

The proofs of this principle turn upon the considera- 
tion, first, of the Agents, and secondly, of the Manifesta- 
tions of feeling. 

(1) Taking the simple feelings, as already described, and 
beginning with the muscular, we remark that muscular exer- 
cise, when pleasurable, is the outpouring of exuberant energy. 
Muscular fatigue is the result of exhaustion. The pleasure 
of repose after fatigue is probably connected with the reflux 
of the blood from the muscles ta other organs, as the brain, 
the stomach, &c. Muscular activity subsides, and organic 
activity takes its place ; and there are other reasons for believ- 
ing, that our pleasurable tone is mor6 dependent upon the 
organic than upon the muscular vigour. 

The extensive and important group of feelings denomi- 
nated Sensations of Organic Life, attest Vith singular explicit- 
ness the truth of the principle. The organic pleasures — from 
Respiration, Digestion, &c. — are associated with the vitalizing 
agencies ; the organic pains, which include the catalogue of 
diseases and physical injuries, point to the reverse. The 
apparent exceptions are an interesting study. Thus, Cold may 
be both painful and wholesome. The explanation seems to be 
that cold for the time depresses the functions of the skin, and 
is thus a medium of pain, while it invigorates the muscles, the 
nerves, and the lungs, and through these eventually the di- 
gestion. And the instance illustrates the superior sensitive- 
ness of the skin, as compared with these other organs ; whence 
we see that though our pleasures are connected with high 
vitality, they are not equally connected with all the vital 
functions. This remark may enable us to dispose of the other 
exception, namely, the concurrence of bodily diseases with pain- 
lessness, and even with comfort and elation of mind. In such 
cases, the disease may attach to insensitive organs and func- 
tions. Mere muscular weakness is not in itself uncomfortable ; 
the heart may be radically deranged without pain ; and there 
may be forms of disease of the lungs, liver, kidneys, &c, that 
do not affect the sensitive nerves. But skin disease, insufficient 



76 THE INSTINCTS. 

warmth, indigestion, and certain other forms of derangement, 
together with wounds and sores, are attended with unfailing 
pain and misery. 

Thus, as regards the muscular feelings, and the sensations 
of the organic group, the induction may be held as proved, 
with the qualification now stated. When, however, we pro- 
ceed to the five senses, we are not struck with the same con- 
currence. In the pleasures of Taste, Smell, Touch, Hearing, 
Sight, there may be, and undoubtedly is, a certain increase of 
vital power, as in the influence of light, or 'the cheerful day/ 
yet the increase of general vitality is not in the same rate as 
the pleasure. In short, the induction fails at ' this point ; 
and some other principle is needed to complete the desired 
explanation. 

(2) Let us view the manifestations under the opposing states 
of pleasure and pain. This will comprehend the theory of 
Expression, of which we have seen the particulars. 

Here the general fact is, that under pleasure all the mani- 
festations are lively, vigorous, and abundant, showing that 
our energies are somehow raised for the time. Under pain, 
on the contrary, there is a quiescence, collapse, and paralysis 
of the energies ; hurt and disease prostrate the patient ; the 
sick-bed is the place of inactivity. 

To quote Bell's analysis of the pleasing and the painful 
expression of the face: — In joy, the eye-brows are raised, and 
the mouth dilated, the result being to open and expand the 
countenance. In painful emotions, the eye-brows are knit 
by the corrugator muscle, the mouth is drawn together and 
perhaps depressed at the angles. ISTow, in the joyful expres- 
sion, there is obviously a considerable amount of muscular 
energy put forth ; a number of large muscles are contracted 
through their whole range. So far the principle holds good. 
Again, in pain the same muscles are relaxed, but then other 
muscles are in operation ; so that the difference would seem to 
be, not difference of energy, but a different direction to the 
energy. This fact has the air of a paradox, and has been 
felt as a puzzle. Pleasure and pain are states totally opposed, 
like plus and minus, credit and debt ; and their physical con- 
ditions ought to disclose a like opposition. Perhaps we may 
reconcile the appearances in the manner following. It is 
true, that in pain certain muscles operate, but they are 
muscles of small size ; and, by their contraction, they more 
thoroughly relax much larger muscles, thus on the whole re- 
leasing nervous energy and blood to go to other parts of the 



CONVULSIVE OUTBURSTS OF FEELING. 77 

system. The slight exertion of the corrugator of the eye- 
brows completes the relaxation of the far more powerful 
muscle that elevates them ; the contraction of the mouth 
releases the larger muscles of retractation. Still more ap- 
parent is the operation of the flexor muscles of the body ; 
the great preponderance of muscular strength is in the muscles 
of erection ; now, in the crouching and collapsed attitude, 
these are relaxed more completely through a small exertion 
of the flexor muscles. Hence the putting forth of power may 
set free power on the whole ; the forced sadness of the coun- 
tenance making the heart better. 

Another exceptional manifestation is the energetic display 
under acute pain. This, however, is only the operation of 
another law of the constitution. Any sudden and intense 
shock is a stimulus to the nerves, and produces a general ex- 
citement in consequence. It is well known that, in the case 
of pain, such excitement is fully paid for by the after-prostra- 
tion, and that the effect, on the whole, is in accordance with 
the main principle. 

The two great convulsive outbursts — Laughter and Sobbing — 
supply additional examples. 

Laughter is a joyful expression; and, in all its parts, it indi- 
cates exalted energy. The great muscle of expiration, the dia- 
phragm, is convulsed ; in other words, is made to undergo a series 
of rapid and violent contractions, showing the presence of a for- 
cible stimulus. The voice concurs in active manifestations; the 
features are expanded to the full limit of the cheerful expression. 
Yet, with all this expenditure, there is no subsequent depression, 
as in acute pains ; on the contrary, the organic functions are 
popularly believed to share in the general exaltation. 

In the convulsive outburst of Grief nearly every thing is reversed. 
The expiration is rendered slow — that is, the diaphragm and the 
other expiratory muscles fail in their office for want of nervous 
power. The voice acts feebly, and sends out a long-drawn melan- 
choly note. The pharynx, or bag of the throat, is partially para- 
lyzed, and swallowing impeded. The features are relaxed ; the 
whole body droops. (When a robust child cries for a trifling rea- 
son, there may be few signs of weakened vitality ; but then there 
is no real grief. ) Finally, the lachrymal effusion is supposed to 
have a relation to the congested state of the blood vessels of the 
brain, which it partially relieves. 

The proofs of the principle in question, derived from the 
study of the separate manifestations under pleasure and under 
pain, apply both to sensations and to emotions. They show 
that, although there may be forms of pleasure, with no such ap- 



78 THE INSTINCTS. 

parent addition to the physical resources, as in the diges- 
tive and respiratory processes, yet the existing resources are 
drawn upon to augment some of the active functions. 

This last consideration appears to meet the case of the plea- 
sures of the five senses. Sights and sounds add nothing to 
the material resources of the body, like food and air, but they 
render them available for the evolution of nerve force. We 
are thus conducted to the enunciation of another principle, 
qualifying and completing the one that we started with. 

7. The concomitance of pleasure and increased vitality 
(with the obverse) is qualified, but not contradicted, by the 
operation of Stimulants. 

Stimulants are of two classes : (1) the ordinary agents 
of the senses (tastes, odours, touches, &c.) and the emotions 
(wonder, love, &c.) ; and (2) the stimulating drugs. 

(1) As regards three of the senses, Touch, Hearing, and 
Sight, their natural stimulation by the appropriate agents, is 
pleasurable within certain limits of intensity, determined by 
the vigour and freshness of the nervous system. It is plea- 
sant for the ear to be assailed with sound, and the eyes with 
light, until such time as the organs are fatigued, and the 
nervous irritability exhausted. In these senses, pain is due 
mainly to excess of stimulus. With reference to Taste and 
Smell, the case is different ; there are agents specifically plea- 
surable, and agents specifically painful, in all degrees; the 
sweet and bitter in taste, the fragrant and malodorous in smell, 
are not grounded on mere difference of intensity. We must 
suppose that certain agents are, in all degrees, favourable to 
nervous stimulation, and certain other agents unfavourable. 

The higher Emotions present no difficulty. Those that 
are pleasurable, as Wonder, Love, Power, Complacency, 
Approbation, Knowledge, Harmony, are favourable to vitality, 
or give healthful stimulus ; the painful emotions, as Fear, 
Hatred, Impotence, Shame, Discord, are depressing physically 
as well as mentally. 

(2) The stimulating drugs, as alcohol, tea, tobacco, opium, 
hemp, betel-nut, do but little to enhance vital action, and, in 
all but their moderate application, greatly waste it. They are 
therefore the extreme form of stimulation proper ; they draw 
upon the nervous power, without contributing to it: thereby 
proving in a still more obtrusive form, that we do not realize 
all the pleasurable excitement that the physical forces of the 



STIMULATION. 79 

system can afford, unless we employ agents to irritate or pro- 
voke nervous assimilation and activity. 

8. The principle of the concomitance of pleasure and 
vitalizing influences (with the ©bverse) may be designated 
the Law of Self-conservation. 

If the case were otherwise, the human and animal system 
would be framed for its own ruin. If pleasure were uniformly 
connected with lowered vitality, and pain with the opposite, 
who would care to keep themselves alive? On the other 
hand, the dangerous licence of the qualifying principle of 
Stimulation, is the limitation to the principle, and the open 
door for abuse. We cannot have pleasure without at least 
one element of activity — nervous assimilation ; it is possible, 
however, that other interests may be suffering without affect- 
ing the toue at the moment, although they will fulfil the 
inexorable law on some future day. 

We shall presently have to appeal to the principle of Con- 
servation, in looking out a basis for the will. 

THE INSTINCTIVE GERMS OF THE WILL. 

1, Our voluntary power, as appearing in mature life, 
is a bundle of acquisitions. 

The hungry man, seeing food before him, puts forfch his 
hand, lifts a morsel to his mouth, chews, masticates, and 
swallows it. The infant can do nothing of all that ; there is 
no link of connexion established in its mind between the state 
of hunger and the movements for gratifying it. A fly lights 
upon the face of a child, producing a tickling irritation ; but 
the movement for brushing it away is not within the infant's 
powers. It is by a course of acquirement, that the local feeling 
of irritation in any part is associated with the movement of 
the hand towards that part. Such associations are neces- 
sarily very numerous ; the will is a machinery of detail. 

The acquirement must rest on certain primitive founda- 
tions ; these alone are to be considered at the present stage. 

2. I. — One of the foundations of voluntary power is 
given in the spontaneity of muscular action. 

We have already adduced the evidence for the spontaneity 
of the muscular discharge. In it, we have a source of 
movements of all the active organs ; each member is disposed 
to pass into action merely through the stimulus of the central 
energy. The locomotion, the voice, the features, the jaws, 



80 THE INSTINCTS. 

and tongue are all exerted by turns, when their nervous 
centres are in a fresh and nourished condition. 

Still spontaneity does not amount to will. Its impulses 
are random and purposeless ; the movements of the will are 
select and pointed to an end ; spontaneity fails, when the will 
is most wanted — that is, when the system is exhausted and 
needs refreshment. 

3. II. — Another foundation of voluntary power is to be 
sought for in the great law of Self-conservation. 

In the fact that pleasure is accompanied with heightened 
energy, and pain with lowered energy, there is a beginning 
of voluntary control, although only a beginning. Under cer- 
tain circumstances, this concurrence does what the will is 
expected to do, namely, secures pleasure and alleviates pain. 
Should a present movement coincide with a present pleasure, 
the pleasure, through its accompaniment of increased energy, 
would tend to maintain and increase the movement ; as when 
already the sucking infant experiences the relish and nutritive 
stimulus of the mother's milk ; or when mastication already 
begun is yielding the pleasurable relish of the food. The 
process is a roundabout one ; for, by the law of conservation, all 
that is gained at first is increase of vital energy in the organs 
generally — organic functions and muscles alike : the special 
movement in question merely participating in the general rise 
of power. 

Again, to illustrate from the side of pain. If a present 
movement coincides with a present pain (not a stimulating 
smart), the concomitant of the pain is lowered vital energy, 
which lowering extends to the movement supposed, and 
arrests it ; as when an animal moving up to a fire encounters 
the scalding heat, with its depressing influence, and there- 
upon has its locomotion suspended. 

In the cases now supposed, the influence of self- conserva- 
tion is tantamount to the action of the will at any stage : the 
deficiency is, that mere conservation will not, any more than 
spontaneity, determine the right movement to arise from the 
dormant condition. To get at this is the real difficulty of the 
problem. 

4. The coincidence of a pleasure with the movements 
proper to maintain or increase it, must be at first acci- 
dental. 

Nothing but chance can be assigned as the means of first 



FOUNDATIONS OF THE WILL, 81 

bringing together pleasure and movement. Spontaneity in- 
duces a variety of movements : should any one of these coin- 
cide with a moment of pleasurable feeling, it would be ren- 
dered more energetic by the accompanying outburst of energy. 
The newly-dropped animal, on touching the warm body of the 
mother, is physically elated through the pleasure of the con- 
tact, and increases the movement that keeps it up. When 
after an hour's fumbling, it gets the teat into its mouth, there 
is a new burst of pleasure and concomitant vitality. The 
stimulus of the sucking (itself an untaught or reflex process) 
still farther inspires the energies to continue the movement 
once begun. But previous to the accidents that brought on 
these encounters, the animal could not of its own accord hit 
upon the appropriate actions. The human infant cannot find 
its way to the breast ; it can only suck when placed there. 

5. III. — When the same movement coincides more 
than once with a state of pleasure, the Ketentive power of 
the mind begins an association between the two. 

After a few returns of the favourable accident that first 
brought together the movement and the pleasure (or relief 
from pain), the two are connected by an associating link, and 
the rise of the pleasure is then apt to be attended with the 
movement for retaining and increasing it. After a number 
of concurrences of the relish of food with the masticating 
process, the morsel of food in the mouth directly prompts the 
jaws to operate. 

This part of our education will be again touched on, under 
the Intellect, and more fully in the detailed explanation of 
the growth of the Will. 



6 



BOOK II. 

THE INTELLECT. 



1. The functions of Intellect, Intelligence, or Thought, 
are known by such names as Memory, Judgment, Ab- 
straction, Eeason, Imagination. 

These last designations were adopted by Reid, Stewart, and 
others, as providing a division of the powers of the Intellect. 
But, strictly looked at, the division is bad; the parts do not 
mutually exclude each other. The real subdivision of the 
intellectual functions is that formerly given, and now repeated. 

2. The primary attributes of Intellect are (1) Con- 
sciousness of Difference, (2) Consciousness of Agreement, 
and (3) Retentiveness. Every properly intellectual func- 
tion involves one or more of these attributes and nothing 
else. 

(1) Discrimination or Feeling of Difference is an essential 
of intelligence. If we were not distinctively affected by dif- 
ferent things, as by heat and cold, red and blue, we should 
not be affected at all. The beginning of knowledge, or ideas, 
is the discrimination of one thing from another. Where we 
are most discriminative, as in our higher senses, we are most 
intellectual. Even with reference to our pleasures and pains, 
we perform an intellectual operation when we recognize them 
as differing in degree. 

This function of the Intellect has been already apparent in 
the Feelings of Movement and the Sensations. The very 
fact of distinguishing the Senses, and their Sensations, sup- 
poses the exercise of discrimination. No separate chapter is 
required for the farther elucidation of this fact. There are 



DISCRIMINATION. — AGREEMENT.— RETENTIVENESS. 83 

higher cases of discrimination, as when a banker detects a 
forged bank note, or a lawyer sees a flaw in a deed, but these 
are involved in the intellectual acquisitions, or the Retentive 
power of the mind. 

The fundamental property of Discrimination is also ex- 
pressed as the Law of Relativity, more than once already 
alluded to. As we can neither feel, nor know, without a 
transition or change of state, — every feeling, and every cognition, 
must be viewed as in relation to some other feeling, or cog- 
nition. The sensation of heat has no absolute character; 
there is in it a transition from a previous state of cold, and the 
sensation is wholly relative to that state. It is known, with 
regard to the feelings generally, that they subsist upon com- 
parison ; the pleasure of good health is relative to ill health ; 
wealth supposes comparative indigence. Also, as regards 
knowledge, everything known, is known in contrast to some- 
thing else; 'up' implies 'down;' 'black 7 presumes 'white/ 
or other colours. There cannot be a single or absolute cog- 
nition. 

(2) The conscious state arising from Agreement in the 
midst of difference, is equally marked and equally fundamen- 
tal. Supposing us to experience, for the first time, a certain 
sensation, as redness ; and after being engaged with other sen- 
sations, to encounter redness again ; we are struck with the 
feeling of identity or recognition ; the old state is recalled at 
the instance of the new, by the fact of agreement, and we have 
the sensation of red, together with a new and peculiar con- 
sciousness, the consciousness of agreement in diversity. As 
the diversity is greater, the shock of agreement is more lively. 

All knowledge finally resolves itself into Differences and 
Agreements. To define anything, as a circle, is to state its 
agreements with some things (genus) and its difference from 
other things (differentia). 

The identifying process implied under Agreement, is a 
great means of mental resuscitation or Reproduction, and 
hence is spoken of as the Associating, or Reproductive prin- 
ciple of Similarity. A considerable space will be devoted to 
the exposition of the principle in this view. 

(3) The attribute named Retentiveness has two aspects or 
degrees. 

First, The persistence or continuance of the mental agita- 
tion, after the agent is withdrawn. When the ear is struck 
by the sound of a bell, there is a mental awakening, termed 
the sensation of sound ; and the silencing of the bell does not 



84 THE INTELLECT. 

silence the mental excitement ; there is a continuing, though 
feebler consciousness, which is the memory or idea of the 
sound. 

Secondly, There is a further and higher power, — the re- 
covering, under the form of ideas, past and dormant impres- 
sions, without the originals, and by mere mental agencies. It 
is possible, at an after time, to be put in mind of sounds for- 
merly heard, without a repetition of the sensible effect. This 
is true memory, and is a power unknown except in connexion 
with the animal organism. The previously- named property is 
paralleled by the waves of a pool struck by a stone, or by any 
other example of the law of mechanical persistence. But the 
distinct recovery of effects that have been obliterated from the 
actual view, and the accumulation, in one organism, of thou- 
sands of these recoverable effects, may be affirmed to be the 
unique function of creatures endowed with a brain and nervous 
system. 

As the principal medium of this recovery is the presence 
of some fact or circumstance formerly co- existing with, or in 
any way contiguous to, the effect remembered, — as when we 
recall a thing by first knowing its name, — the Retentive pro- 
perty has been designated Contiguous Association. 

It is not meant that the three attributes now specified can work 
in separation, or could exist in separation. On the contrary, they 
are implicated to such a degree that the suspension of one would 
destroy the others. Discrimination could not exist without Reten- 
tiveness ; there would be nothing to retain without Discrimina- 
tion ; and no progress in retention without Agreement. Yet, not- 
withstanding this mutual implication in their working, the three 
processes are logically distinct; each means something quite apart 
from the others. It is as in the combination of extension and 
colour in material bodies ; the properties are inseparable and yet 
distinct. 

The exhaustive discussion of the Intellectual powers turns 
chiefly upon the two last-named attributes, Agreement and 
Retentiveness ; but, as the most interesting applications of 
Agreement lie among remembered or acquired products, it is 
better to commence with the Retentive or plastic property. 
Next will be given the exposition of Agreement or Similarity.* 
A third chapter will be devoted to the cases of Complicated 
mental reproduction. And lastly, some account will be taken 
of the process of forming original constructions, or what is 
termed the Creative or Inventive faculty of the mind. 

3. Certain important uses are served by an accurate, 
or scientific, knowledge of the Intellectual Powers. 



TSES OF THE STUDY OF THE INTELLECT. 85 

First, There is a natural curiosity to discover the Laws 
that govern the stream of our Thoughts. All the workings of 
nature are interesting, and not least so should be the workings 
of our own minds. 

Secondly, The statement and the explanation of the differ- 
ences of Intellectual Character must proceed upon a know- 
ledge of the attributes and laws of our intelligence. 

Thirdly, The art of Education is grounded on a precise 
knowledge of the retentive or plastic power of the mind. The 
arts of Reasoning and Invention, if such there be, naturally 
connect themselves with the laws of the faculties involved. 

Fourthly, Many important disputes turn upon the deter- 
mination of what parts of our intelligence are primitive, and 
what acquired. Such is the subject of Innate Ideas generally ; 
also the questions raised by Berkeley — namely, the Theory of 
Vision, and the doctrine of External Perception. 



CHAPTER I. 
KETENTIVESTESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

1. With few exceptions, the facts of Eetentiveness may 
be comprehended under the principle called the Law of 
Contiguity, or Contiguous Adhesion. v 

Retentiveness is the comprehensive name for Memory, 
Habit, and the Acquired powers in general. The principle of 
Contiguity has been described under various names, as Hamil- 
ton's law of ' Redintegration ; ' the ' Association of Ideas,' in- 
cluding Order in Time, Order in Place, Cause and Effect. 
The principle may be stated thus : — 

2. Actions, Sensations, and States of Feeling, occurring 
together, or in close succession, tend to grow together, or 

# cohere, in such a way that when any of them is afterwards 
presented to the mind, the others are apt to be brought up 
in idea. 

The detail of examples wilTbring out the various circum- 
stances regulating the rate of growth of the cohesive link. 
Generally, as is well known, a certain continuance, or repeti- 
tion, is necessary to make a firm connexion. 



86 KETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 



MOVEMENTS. 

We commence with the association of movements and 
states of muscular activity. Our acquisitions are known to 
comprehend a great many aggregates and sequences of move- 
ments, united with unfailing certainty. We shall see, how- 
ever, that the chief aggregates of this kind include sensations 
also, and that the case of pure association of movement is not 
frequent, although both possible and occasionally realized. 

3. It is likely that our Spontaneous and Instinctive 
actions are invigorated by exercise. 

The various actions occurring in the round of Spontaneous 
discharges, are likely to become more vigorous, and more 
ready, after they have arisen a number of times ; while In- 
stinctive actions, as walking on all- fours, or sucking, &c, are 
also improved by repetition. 

In the growth of the Will, which involves spontaneous actions, 
something is gained by the greater facility of beginning any 
movement after a certain frequency of occurrence. The hands, 
the voice, the tongue, the mouth, exercise their powers at 
first in mere aimless expenditure of force ; by which they are 
prepared for starting forth to be linked with special feelings 
and occasions. 

4. Movements, frequently Conjoined, become asso- 
ciated, or grouped, so as to arise in the aggregate, at one 
bidding. 

Suppose the power of walking attained, and also the power 
of rotating the limbs. One may then be taught to combine 
the walking pace with the turning of the toes outward. Two 
volitions are at first requisite for this act ; but, after a time, 
the rotation of the limb is combined with the act of walking, 
and unless we wish to dissociate the two, they go together as 
a matter of course ; the one resolution brings on the combined 
movement. 

Children attempting to walk, must learn to keep their 
balance. This depends on properly aggregated movements ; * 
the lifting of the right foot has to be associated with the move- 
ments for making the whole body incline to the left, and 
obversely. The art of walking includes other aggregates ; the 
lifting of one foot is accompanied with a rising upon the other, 
and with a bending forward of the whole body. The educa- 
tion in walking consists in making these aggregates so secure, 



ACQUISITIONS OF MOVEMENTS. 87 

that the one movement shall not fail to carry with it the 
collaterals. 

Articulate speech largely exemplifies the aggregation of 
muscular movements and positions. A concurrence of the 
chest, larynx, tongue, and mouth, in a definite group of exer- 
tions, is requisite for each alphabetic letter. These groupings, 
at first impossible, are, after a time, cemented with all the firm- 
ness of the strongest instinct. 

5. We acquire also Successions of Movements. 

In all manual operations, there occur successions of move- 
ments so firmly associated, that when we will to do the first, 
the rest follow mechanically and unconsciously. In eating, 
the act of opening the mouth mechanically follows the raising 
of the morsel. In loading a gun, the sportsman does not need 
to put forth a distinct volition to each movement of the hands. 

6. It is rare to find an association of movements as 
such, or without the intervention of sensations. 

In most mechanical trains, the sense of the effect of one 
movement usually precedes the next, and makes a link in the 
association. Thus, in loading a gun, the feeling that the car- 
tridge is sent home, precedes, as an essential link, the with- 
drawing of the ramrod. There is, in such instances, a complex 
train of feelings and movements. 

A deaf person speaking would appear to illustrate the se- 
quence of pure movement ; but, even in that case, there is a 
feeling of muscular expenditure. Such a feeling can never be 
absent until the very last stage of habit is reached, the stage 
when the mind is entirely unconscious of the movements gone 
through. A great practical importance attaches to this final 
consummation. It is the point where actions take place, with 
the least effort or expenditure of the forces of the brain. The 
class of actions so performed have been named secondary 
automatic, as resembling the automatic or reflex actions — 
breathing, &c. 

Although the learning of successions of movements nearly 
always involves the medium of sensation, in the first instance, 
yet we must assume that there is a power, in the system, for 
associating together movements as such, and that special cir- 
cumstances favour this acquisition. 

7. There are certain conditions that govern the pace of 
acquisition generally. These are (1) Eepetition or Con- 



88 EETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

tinuance, (2) Concentration of Mind, and (3) the Natural 
Adhesiveness of the individual constitution. 

(1) In order to every acquisition, a certain Continuance, 
repetition, or practice is needed, varying according to circum- 
stances. By repetition, we make up for natural weakness or 
other defects, as in the extra drill of the awkward squad. 

(2) Mental concentration will make a great difference in 
the pace of acquisition. When the whole of the attention is 
given to the work in hand, the cohesive growth is compara- 
tively rapid. Distraction, diversion, remission are hostile to 
progress. 

Concentration, as a voluntary act, depends on the motives. 
If the work is pleasant in act or in prospect, and if no other 
pleasure interferes, the whole mind is gained. This is con- 
centration from the side of Pleasure. Whatever we have a 
strong liking for, we learn with ease. Our Tastes are thus a 
leading element in our acquisitions. 

But concentration may be determined by Pain. The work 
itself being distasteful in comparison of something else, the 
mind revolts from it, until some strong pain is set up in the 
path ; the lesson may not be liked, but the consequences of 
engaging the mind elsewhere may be sufficiently painful to 
neutralize the pleasure. 

Another influence of pain is as mere Excitement, which 
intensifies the mental processes, and impresses on the memory 
whatever objects are present to the mind, giving to things 
disagreeable a persistence in opposition to the will. 

(3) All the facts show that constitutions differ as to power 
of Adhesiveness, under exactly the same circumstances. In 
every class of learners, on every subject, there are the greatest 
inequalities. This Natural Adhesiveness usually shows itself 
in special departments — aptitude for languages, for science, 
for music, &c. ; but it also shows itself in a more general form, 
or as applied to things generally. Hence part of it may be 
attributed to an endowment of the system, as a whole ; while 
part depends on local endowments, as, for example, the musi- 
cal ear. 

8. The circumstances favouring the adhesion of move- 
ments in particular may be supposed to be (1) Muscular 
vigour, (2) The Active Temperament, and (3) Muscular 
Delicacy. 

(1) Mere muscular vigour, by favouring the performance 



CONDITIONS OF KETENTIVENESS. 89 

of mechanical exercises, or the energy and persistence of mus- 
cular practice, cannot but contribute to progress in the me- 
chanical arts. 

(2) Of equal, if not of greater importance is the nervous 
peculiarity that prompts to muscular activity, determining a 
profuse and various spontaneity of the bodily movements. 

(3) In the muscular system, as in the special senses, there 
may be degrees of delicacy, shown in nicety of muscular dis- 
crimination. This may be hypothetically connected with a 
higher organization of the ganglia of the active side of the 
brain — the motor centres whence the motor nerves immediately 
emanate. Whenever the test of chs crimination shows superior 
muscular endowment, we are entitled to presume a greater 
degree of muscular retentiveness. The analogy of the senses is 
strong on this point, and will be referred to afterwards ; the 
best case being the ear for music. 

9. Acquirement in every form demands a certain 
Physical Vigour. 

The freshness and vigour of the general system may be 
looked upon as essential to the plastic operation. Fatigue, 
exhaustion, indifferent nourishment, derogate from the powers 
of the learner. The greater physical vigour of early years is 
one, among other reasons, why youth is the season of im- 
provement. 

The mental concentration, or exercise of the Attention, 
necessary to new acquirements, is costly and exhausting. 

IDEAL FEELINGS OF MOVEMENT. — THE SEAT OF IDEAS. 

10. The Ideas of Movement may be associated together. 

We may have ideas, or recollections and imaginations, 
of our various activities. We may rehearse, in the thoughts, 
the movements of a dance, or the manipulation of a sailing 
boat. 

11. In regard to Ideas generally, it is probable, if not 
certain, that the renewed feeling, or idea, occupies the 
same parts, and in the same manner, as the original or 
actual feeling. 

It was vaguely surmised, in former times, that the memory 
of things consisted in storing up images in a certain part of 
the brain, distinct from the places originally affected ; that, in 
actually seeing a building, one portion of the brain is exercised, 



90 BETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

and, in remembering it, a different portion. The facts are op- 
posed to such a conclusion. 

In very lively recollection, we find a tendency to repeat the 
actual movements. Thus, in mentally recalling a verbal train, 
we seem to repeat, on the tongue, the very words; the recol- 
lection consists of a suppressed articulation. A mere addition 
to the force or vehemence of the idea, or the withdrawal of the 
restraint of the will, would make us speak out what we speak 
inwardly. Now, the tendency of the idea of an action to be- 
come the action, shows that the idea is already the fact in a 
weaker form. But if so, it must be performing the same 
nervous rounds, or occupying the same circles of the brain, in 
both states. 

The same doctrine must equally apply to the- Sensations of 
the Senses, and will derive illustration from them. The mere 
idea of a nauseous taste can excite the reality even to the pro- 
duction of vomiting; The sight of a person about to pass a 
sharp instrument over glass excites the well-known sensation 
in the teeth. The sight of food makes the saliva begin to flow. 
In the mesmeric experiments, this effect is carried still farther ; 
the patient, through the suggested idea of intoxication, simu- 
lates the reality. Persons of weak nerves have been made ill 
actually, by being falsely told that they looked ill. 

So it is with the special Emotions and passions. The 
thought or recollection of anger brings on the same expres- 
sion of countenance, the same gestures, as the real passion. 
The memory of a fright is the fright re-induced, in a weaker 
shape. 

To this doctrine it may be objected, that the loss of eye- 
sight would be the loss of memory of visible things ; that Mil- 
ton's imagination must have been destroyed when he became 
blind. The answer is, that the inner circles of the brain must 
ever be the chief part of the agency both in sensations and in 
ideas. The destruction of the organ of sense, while rendering 
sensation impossible, can be but a small check upon the inward 
activity ; it cuts off merely the extremity of the course de- 
scribed by the nerve currents. Moreover, the decay of the 
optic sensibility does not impair the activity of the muscles of 
the eye, wherein are embodied the perceptions of visible 
motion, form, extension, &c, which are one half, and not the 
least important half, of the picture. ♦ 

12. The tendency in all Ideas to become Actualities, 
according to their intensity, is a source of active impulses 
distinct from the ordinary motives of the "Will. 



TENDENCIES OF IDEAS TO BECOME ACTUALITIES. 91 

The Will is under the two influences — pleasure and pain ; 
being urged to the one and from the other. But an idea 
strongly possessed may induce us to act out that idea, even 
although it leads to pain rather than to pleasure. The mes- 
meric sleep shows the extreme instance ; in ordinary sleep, 
also, we are withdrawn from the correcting influence of actu- 
alities, and follow out whatever fancy crosses the view. In 
the waking state, we do not, as a rule, act out our ideas ; they 
are seldom strong enough to neutralize the operation of the 
will. Still the power exists,, and is, on occasions, fully mani- 
fested. 

As an unequivocal instance of the power of an idea to 
generate its actuality, we may quote the infection of special 
forms of crime, and even of self-destruction. The impression 
made on susceptible minds by some notorious example is often 
carried out to the fall, in spite of the deterring action of the 
usual motives of the will. 

The fascination of a precipice is also in point. The specta- 
tor, seeing himself near precipitation, has the act of falling 
so forcibly suggested, that he has to put forth an effort of will 
to resist the suggestion.. 

Temptation to do something forbidden often comes of 
merely suggesting the idea, which is then a power to act itself 
out. In this way, ambition is inflamed, so as to master the 
sober calculation of future happiness. 

The operation of an idea strongly possessed is especially 
prominent in the outgoings of Fear. It is the peculiarity of 
this passion to impress the mind unduly with its object, to 
magnify evil possibilities, and so to exaggerate the idea of 
escape, that one cannot be restrained from acting it out. 

13. In the workings of Sympathy, there seems to be 
the carrying out of an. Idea, apart from the usual opera- 
tion of the will. 

If the will be defined the pursuit of pleasure and the 
abstinence from pain, then disinterested conduct r involving 
frequently self-sacrifice, must spring from some other part of 
our nature. Now, as we are able, by means of our own expe- 
rience, to form ideas of other men's pains and pleasures, we 
are disposed, according to the principle in question, to act 
these out, even although we forfeit a certain amount of plea- 
sure, or incur a certain amount of pain. "We conceive the 
pain of another man's hunger, and act out the idea by procur- 
ing for him. food, even at some cost to ourselves. 



92 ItETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

14. It is a consequence of the doctrine as to the seat 
of revived feelings, that the Idea and the Actuality must 
have a great deal in common. 

Memory and Imagination may be described in the lan- 
guage used for sensation, with certain allowances. A person 
vividly recollecting a former transaction, exclaims, 'I now 
see before me.' Next, the delicacy of the senses is likely to 
be reproduced in the recollection and in the imagination. 
Also, for the purposes of the will, in pursuit or in avoidance, 
the idea operates like the actuality. Farther, the same ex- 
haustion of brain, and in the same parts, follows prolonged 
exercise in sensation and in thought. 

15. Feelings of Movement may be associated together. 
Since we can repeat mentally the steps of any complicated 

action, as a dance, we may, in consequence of this mental re- 
petition, strengthen the cohesion of the train of movements. 
Practically, the process is seen at work in our vocal acquire- 
ments. We can acquire trains of language, without repeating 
aloud, although perhaps not quite so well. Children have 
often to learn their lessons by conning them in a whisper, 
which is the next stage to a mere idea. So, in meditating a 
discourse, and fixing it in the memory, without writing, as 
was the practice of Robert Hall, an adhesion takes place be- 
tween ideal movements of articulation. 

16. The Growth of Associations among Ideal movements 
must be supposed to follow the law of associations among 
the corresponding Actual movements. 

The centres where the connexions are formed being the 
same, the only difference will be the feebler impetus of nerve 
action in the case of the ideal movements. Under great ex- 
citement, this difference will not exist, and the adhesion may 
be equally good in both. 

Hence in any part of the system, where the adhesiveness 
of actual movements is good, that of ideal movements will be 
good also ; and all the circumstances and endowments favour- 
ing one will favour both. 

17. A movement, whether real or ideal, is Mentally 
known as a definite Expenditure of Energy in some Special 
muscle or muscles. 

We must first discriminate degrees of expenditure, and 
next associate the different modes or degrees into grouped 



INDIVIDUAL IDEAS BECOME SELF-SUSTAINING. 93 

situations. A delicate discrimination is thus the condition of 
all retentiveness, as it marks out clearly the distinctive features 
of what is to be retained. To this we must add, as above 
remarked, that nice discrimination is to be regarded as indi- 
cating a superior organization in the centres of muscular 
activity — a higher multiplication of the nervous elements, 
whence arises a corresponding superiority in the plastic power, 
or Retentiveness. 

SENSATIONS OF THE SAME SENSE. 

18. Throughout all the Senses, the associating process 
connects sensations that happen frequently together. 

In the inferior senses, the examples are neither numerous 
nor interesting. We may have a series of Organic pains, 
representing the course of an attack of illness, and remembered 
by the patient. We might also have a train of ideas of Taste, 
the first recalling to the mind all the rest ; but there are few 
occasions for acquiring such trains. As regards Smell, there 
might be a succession of odours, regularly encountered in 
going in a particular track, through gardens, &c. ; and if such 
an experience were often repeated, there would be found in the 
memory a cohering train of ideas of smell ; the occurrence of 
one to the mind would suggest the others. 

19. In the same operation that fixes, in the mind, a 
train of ideas, formed from sensations, the individual 
ideas become Self-sustaining. 

In order that the first member of an often repeated train of 
tastes or odours should recall the next, each must be so far 
impressed or engrained that it can subsist of itself, without 
the original, to a greater or less degree of vividness. Before 
the taste of bread recalls the taste and relish of butter, usually 
conjoined, we must have tasted butter often enough to be able 
to retain some idea, more or less adequate, of that particular 
taste. This is equally a consequence of the retentive process 
of the mind, and follows all the laws governing the rate of ad- 
hesive growth. 

The simplest sensation that we can have is a complex fact, 
as far as concerns being retained. A coherence must be 
effected in the mechanism of the brain, to enable a touch, or 
sound, or an idea of light, to possess a mental persistence ; 
and the greater the degree of this coherence, in consequence 
of repetition and the other means of retentiveness, the better 
will be the mental conception. 



94 RETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

20. The cohesive grouping of Sensations of the same 
sense appears largely in Touch. 

In Touch, we have great variety of sensations .; the purely 
emotional, — as soft touches and pungent touches ; and those 
entering into intellectual perceptions, — as the feelings of 
roughness, weight, size, form, &c. Associations are formed 
among the different modes of these sensations; resulting in 
our tactual notions of familiar things. The child accustomed 
to handle a muff, forms an association between its softness, 
its elasticity, and its warmth to the touch ; to these are 
added the muscular elements of size and form. If this aggre- 
gate has been definitely connected in one group, by familiarity 
with the same thing, the experience of one of the qualities 
would recall the whole aggregate. The soft touch would 
make the mind expect everything else. So it is that we 
acquire distinctive notions of all the objects we are accustomed 
to handle ; the lady knows her fan in the dark, the workman 
knows the tool he wants by the first contact ; we each know 
whether we touch the poker or the hearth brush, a cinder or 
an ivory ball, a pen or a piece of string, a book or the cat, the 
table or the mantel-shelf. Every one of these familiar things 
is a definite grouping by plastic association between different 
modes of touch, some purely tactile, and others muscular. 

Of course, one definite touch will not recall the whole of 
the tactile qualities of a specific object, unless there has been 
an exclusive association. When the cold touch of polished 
marble has been associated with many different forms, it will 
not recall any one in particular. The hand placed on a wooden 
surface tells nothing, because so many known things have the 
same touch; either a plurality of different objects will be re- 
called, or some one will be singled out by other links of asso- 
ciation, or there will be no revival at all. 

21. In considering the Eate of Acquirement among 
associations of Touch we must take into account, besides 
the general conditions of acquirement, the special character 
of the sense. 

Touch being a two-fold sense, we must refer to the con- 
stituents in separation. 

The purely tactile sensibility, the passive element of touch, 
is, in the scale of intellect, superior to Taste and Smell, inferior 
to Hearing and Sight. This comparative superiority and in- 
feriority must be supposed to attach equally to the discrimi- 



ASSOCIATIONS OF TOUCH. 95 

native power, and to the retentiveness (we have assumed 
these two properties to rise and fall together). 

The other element of Touch is Muscularity ; the weight, 
hardness, size, and form of things, are tested and remembered 
principally by the muscles of the hand and the arm. 

The intellectual character of the muscular feelings is pro- 
bably not the same for all muscles ; hence each set would have 
to be independently judged. We know that the muscles of 
the eye excel in delicacy of discrimination and retentiveness ; 
they would not otherwise be on a par with the optical sensi- 
bility. Probably the muscles of the voice and articulation come 
next, and, after these, the hand and the arm; the difference 
being no doubt related to the comparative supply of nerves, 
and the expansion of the corresponding centres. 

There may be great individual differences of character in 
respect of tactual endowment. These are principally indicated 
by degrees of delicacy in the manual arts. 

Both in the tactual and in the muscular element, any su- 
perior delicacy will tell upon the worker in plastic material. 
The muscular precision of the hand and the arm is a guarantee 
for nicety of execution in every species of manipulation — with 
the surgeon and the artist, no less than the common artizan. 

22. It is only in the Blind, that we can appreciate the 
natural delicacy, or intellectual susceptibility, of the sense 
of Touch. 

None but the blind are accustomed to think of outward 
objects as ideas of Touch ; in the minds of others, the visible 
ideas preponderate, and constitute the chief material of recol- 
lection. A blind workman remembers and discriminates his 
tools by their tactile ideas. The trains of associations that 
determine the order and array of surrounding things are, to 
the blind, trains of ideas of touch. 

23. The associations among Sounds include, besides 
many casual connexions, the two great departments of 
Musical and Articulate Sounds. 

Any two sounds heard together, or in close succession, for 
a number of times, would mutually reproduce each other in 
idea. When a sound is made in front of an echoing wall, we 
anticipate the echo. 

In Musical training, the individual notes are rendered self- 
sustaining, and are at the same associated in musical suc- 
cessions. One note sounded brings on the idea of another 



96 RETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

that has usually followed it. When a sufficient number are 
given to determine an air, the remaining notes rise to the 
mind. The education of an accomplished musician is com- 
posed of many hundreds of these successions. 

Besides the general conditions of acquirement, we must 
refer, in this case, to the quality termed the musical ear. 
Although the ear is improvable by cultivation, the basis of 
all great musical skill is a primitive endowment. There must 
be, from the beginning, a comparatively nice discrimination of 
musical tones, for which we may assume the physical basis of 
extensive auditory centres. A bad ear will not distinguish 
one note from the next above it or below it on the scale. A 
good ear will discriminate the minute fraction of a note. 

It must be taken for granted, until the contrary is shown, 
that the delicate feeling of Agreement follows Discrimination ; 
and that Retentiveness will follow both. Once for all, there- 
fore, we may assume that delicacy of Discrimination is to be 
accepted as the criterion of all the three intellectual properties. 
Hence, when a sense has an unusual degree of discriminative 
power, there will also be an unusual retentiveness for its 
sensations. ~Not in music alone, therefore, but in everything, 
good memory will accompany acute feeling of difference. 

Articulate sounds are made coherent on the same principle 
as musical sounds. We are familiarized with each distinct 
articulation, and are, at the same time, occupied with com- 
bining them into groups in the complex sounds of words and 
trains of words. In the minds of the uneducated, these con- 
nexions exist by hundreds ; in a cultivated mind, they count 
by thousands. 

The good articulate ear may be, to some extent, a modifi- 
cation of the musical ear. In so far as the letters are distin- 
guished by being combinations of musical tones, the two 
sensibilities must be the same. But this applies only to the 
vowels ; the consonants are discriminated by other kinds of 
effect. It would not be in accordance with fact to say, that a 
good musical ear infers a good articulate ear. 

The successions of sounds, both musical and articulate, 
possess the quality termed Cadence or Accent. The ear re- 
members the cadences familiar to it, and reproduces them in 
vocal imitation. The brogue or accent of a province is im- 
pressed on the young ear ; a large variety of cadences enters 
into the more elaborate training of the elocutionist. The ear 
for cadence may be somewhat different from, although con- 
taining points in common with, the musical and articulate ears, 



ASSOCIATIONS OF SIGHT. 97 

24, Cohering aggregates and trains of Sight are, by 
pre-eminence, the material of thought, memory, and ima- 
gination. 

Sensations of sight are composed of visual spectra and mus- 
cular feelings — passive feelings mixed with active. 

While the separate colours and shades are acquiring ideal 
persistence, they are becoming associated together in aggre- 
gates and trains. We cannot produce cases of association of 
colours alone, or without muscular elements, but there are 
many instances where colour is the predominating fact. The 
splendours of sunrise and sunset, the succession of tints of 
the sky, exemplify the preponderance of colour. The varie- 
gated landscape is an aggregate of coloured masses, which 
may be associated in great part optically. The aspect of 
a city, with its streets, houses, shops, is many- coloured, 
and must be remembered chiefly by the help of associated 
colours. 

On the other hand, in objects with little colour, and with 
sharp outlines, the muscular element predominates, as in a 
building or an interior, in machinery, and, most of all, in the 
forms and diagrams of Geometry, Architecture, Engineering, &c. 

We shall illustrate the adhesiveness, first, in Forms ; 
secondly, in Coloured Surfaces. 

When the eye follows a circular form, as a ring, the effect 
is principally muscular. The adhesion resides in the active 
centres connected with the muscles of the eye. By these, we 
hold the figures of Geometry, the symbols of the sciences 
generally, outline plans of mechanical structures, the charac- 
teristic forms of all special objects. In the Fine Arts of Sculp- 
ture and Architecture, form is predominant. 

There is probably a special endowment for the retention of 
visible forms, whose natural locality would be the active centres 
of vision. It would show itself in the rapid and extensive 
acquirement of unmeaning symbols, written characters, and 
skeleton outlines, as in maps and diagrams. The Chinese 
language is probably the extreme instance of the acquisition 
of forms. The memory for maps is also a trying instance. 
These cases require the strongest disinterested adhesion. 

In the case of Scientific forms, there g may enter the 
scientific interest, determining special concentration of mind. 
Such forms are comparatively few in number, but intensely 
important. 

In regard to Artistic forms, the Artistic interest is a 
7 



98 RETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

prompting to mental concentration ; only such as enter into 
Art would be specially retained. Curves, for their beauty, 
and certain geometric forms, for their symmetry, would be laid 
hold of; those that have no interest except as symbols would 
be disregarded. 

In Coloured Surfaces, we suppose the colour to be the chief 
fact ; for, although Form can never be absent, the optical 
adhesiveness is the essential consideration. Such are, in addi- 
tion to natural scenes and prospects, highly decorated interiors, 
pictures, assemblies of people, the human face and figure, 
animals, plants, and minerals. 

The endowment for discriminating and remembering 
Colour may well be supposed to be special and distinct. 
Phrenology is justified in supposing a special organ of colour. 
The centres in relation with the optic nerve are probably far 
more expanded and richer in nervous elements, in some consti- 
tutions than in others. A special retentiveness for colour is a 
great determining fact of character. It not only constitutes a 
facility in remembering scenes, pictures, and coloured objects, 
thus entering into the faculty of the painter and the poet : it 
also leads to a liking for the concrete surface of the world with 
all its emotions and interests, and to a disliking or revulsion 
from the bare and naked symbols, forms, and abstractions of 
science. 

SENSATIONS OF DIFFERENT SENSES. 

25. Our education involves various connexions among 
Movements, Feelings of Movement, and the Sensations of 
the different senses. 

In the complication of actual things, the same object may 
operate upon several senses at once. A bell is ideally retained 
as a combination of touch, sound, and sight. An orange can 
affect all the senses. 

Movements ivith Sensations. Our movements are extensively 
associated with sensations. Ourvarious actions are instigatedby 
sensible signs, as names or other signals ; the child's early educa- 
tion comprises the obedience to direction or command. Ani- 
mals also can take on the same acquisition. The notes of 
the bugle, and the signals at sea, are associated with definite 
movements. 

Our locomotive and other movements are incessantly 
attended with changes of our visible environment, and become 
associated with these changes accordingly. Every step for- 
ward alters the visual magnitude of all objects before the eyes ; 



ARCHITECTUEAL ASSOCIATIONS. 99 

and of such as are near, in a very palpable degree. This is a 
principal part of our acquired perceptions of distance. (See 
Chap. VII.) 

It was already remarked, under Associations of Movement, 
that there are few associations of mere movement ; the sense 
of the effect generally intervenes and accompanies the exertion. 
A man digging does not mechanically put in the spade and 
turn it up ; he, at the same time, sees and feels the results ; 
the sight and the feeling co-operate in directing and guiding 
each movement, and in introducing the one that follows. 

Muscular Ideas with Sensations. We may associate Ideas 
of Force and Movement, resulting from muscular expenditure, 
with Sensations. There are some interesting examples in 
point. We connect the weight and inertia of different kinds 
of material, with the visible appearance, and other sensible 
properties. On looking at a block of stone, at an iron bar, 
or a log of wood, we form a certain ideal estimate of the com- 
parative weights, or of the muscular expenditure requisite to 
move, or support the several masses. This association is gained 
partly by our direct experience, and partly by seeing the mus- 
cular exertions of other persons ; it becomes at last one of the 
powerful associations that enter into our ideas of external 
things. It is at the basis of our Architectural tastes and de- 
mands. When we see a mass of stone supported on a pedes- 
tal, we form at once an estimate of the sufficiency or insuffi- 
ciency of the support, and are affected pleasantly or unplea- 
santly according to the estimate. By a rapid process of asso- 
ciation, almost like an instinct, we imagine the pressure of a 
block of any given size ; an idea of its gravitating energy is 
constructed out of our own experiences ; and a similar idea 
is formed of the strength of the rope that is to hoist it up, 
and the waggon that is to transport it. The same feeling 
determines our sense of Architectural proportions ; these 
being very different in the case of wood, of stone, and of 
iron ; and would be modified into another shape still, if gold 
were the material employed. From want of familiarity with 
gold in masses, we should be greatly at fault in connecting 
the visible appearance of a block with its weight and inertia. 

Sensations ivith Sensations. We may have as many groups 
of combinations as there are possible unions among our senses. 
Organic sensations may be associated with Tastes, Smells, 
Touches, Sounds, Sights ; Tastes with Smells, &c. ; Smells 
with Touches, and so on. The more interesting cases occur 
under the three higher senses. 



100 KETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

Touches are associated with Sounds, when the ring of a 
substance suggests its surface to the touch, and vice versd, as 
in discriminating stone, wood, glass, pottery, cloth, &c. 

Touches are associated with Sights, on a very great scale. 
We connect with the visible appearance of every substance 
that we may have frequently handled, its feeling to the touch, 
as soft, hard, rough, smooth, as well as the tactile form and 
tactile magnitude. 

This is the association that Berkeley principally founded 
upon, in explaining the acquired perceptions of Sight (see 
Chap. VII.). The fact itself is not to be disputed ; we do ac- 
quire associations of singular firmness between visible surfaces 
and their tactile sensations ; the cold, hard smoothness of 
polished marble, the roughness of the fracture of a piece of 
cast iron or steel, the clamminess of a lump of clay, are sug- 
gested rapidly and vividly in the case of all familiar things. 
And if such be the case with the strictly tactile properties 
(where no one contends for an instinctive conjunction), we 
need not wonder at the rapid and vivid suggestion of tangible 
resistance and magnitude. Still, as will be seen, there are 
other experiences required to constitute our associations of 
real distance with its visible signs. 

Sounds are associated with Sights, on a still greater scale. 
Every characteristic sound emanating from an object of cha- 
racteristic visible appearance, is firmly associated with that 
appearance. We associate the sound not merely with the 
sounding object, but with the distance and position of the 
object. (See Hearing, p. 56.) So that we may be said to 
hear distance as well as to see it ; by both senses, we are made 
aware of the locomotive effort that would be required to tra- 
verse the interval between one distance and another. 

We connect every object with its sound when struck ; 
every instrument with its note ; every animal with its cries ; 
every human being with their voice, and even with their cough 
or sneeze. 

Our mother tongue is, in great part, a series of associations 
between sounds (as names) and visible objects. The exten- 
sion to written language embraces the further associations be- 
tween the audible sounds and the printed characters. 

26. In the association of different senses, it is to be 
presumed that the rapidity of the adhesive growth will 
vary with the adhesive quality of each of the senses. 

In the absence of anything to the contrary, we must sup- 



LOCALIZATION OF BODILY FEELINGS. 101 

pose that when sights and sounds are associated, the progress 
will depend upon the adhesiveness in sight by itself, and in 
sound by itself. The mother tongue will be learned with 
more rapidity, according as the articulate ear is good, and 
according as the visible associations within themselves are 
good. No other consideration can be assigned from our pre- 
sent knowledge. It does not seem that any barrier is pre- 
sented to the union of sensations of different senses ; the pro- 
cess is as easy and rapid between two, as in the sphere of one. 

27. The Localization of our Bodily Feelings is an 
acquired perception. 

Previous to experience, we do not know the locality of any 
bodily sensation — for example, a pressure on the shoulder or 
the toe. But our own body is to us an object of sense ; we 
can see it, and move the hand over it. It is also a seat of 
subjective sensibilities ; it undergoes changes attended with 
pleasure, and with pain. When we see the hand touching a 
part, we couple the objective or pictorial aspect with a spe- 
cial tactile feeling; if the hand is transferred to another 
part, the altered pictorial aspect is connected with the new 
contact. This is the beginning of our local associations with 
the parts of the body, and is the means of enabling us to 
assign the locality of any part that is occasioning a subjective 
feeling. 

Some explanation is necessary here. How should the same 
pressure, causing the same feeling, be recognized sometimes 
in one spot, and sometimes in another? The quality of a 
sensation may be the same in two cases, yet we may learn to 
localize them differently. On this point, we can only assert 
the fact, and surmise, that it is physically supported by the 
independence of the nerves distributed over the different 
parts ; an independence already assumed for the feeling of 
plurality of contacts, as described under Touch. The nerves 
of touch in the right forefinger are so far distinct from the 
nerves of the left forefinger, that a separate track or line of 
association can be formed between each and the movements 
that determine us to look to the right or to the left. We 
seem to have qualitative sameness of sensation with artificial 
or associated difference. 

We are best able to localize the feelings connected with 
the surface, because its changes are accessible to observation. 
The deep-seated parts can be got at, only when they are 
brought into some relation with the surface ; as when pres- 



102 RETENTIVENESS— LAW OP CONTIGUITY. 

sure on the stomach or the liver modifies a feeling supposed 
to be connected with the part ; or as when local treatment 
soothes an irritation. 

28. Our body occupies, as it were, a position between 
the subject mind and the object world at large. Atten- 
tion to our body is an object state, but with strong subject 
associations. 

By gazing on things external to our body, we are in a 
truly object attitude ; by gazing on any part of the skin, we 
bring up subject feelings. By imagining the local appearances 
of a pain, we may almost realize it physically. This is one of 
the connexions of idea and reality, occurring in an exaggerated 
form under the mesmeric sleep. Mr. Braid used the fact to 
induce healthy actions on diseased organs. It is scarcely pos- 
sible to gaze intently for a long time on any part of the body 
without inducing subjective feelings in reference to it; and 
these carry with them actual changes in the part. 

29. Associated differences in sensations alike in quality 
may occur, not only in Touch, but also in Sight, and in 
Muscular Movements. 

The foregoing remarks apply to Touch. The same is true 
of Sight. A sensation of light may be qualitatively the same 
as another; but, by arising through different parts of the 
retina, they are recognized as different ; they become associ- 
ated with different movements. If two twins are so alike 
that we cannot distinguish them, some variation is made in 
their dress to prevent confusion. In the same way, sensations 
through different parts of the retina are made distinct by their 
alliances. One requires an upward motion to place it in the 
centre of vision, another a downward ; one a larger, and an- 
other a smaller sweep, to attain the same position. 

As regards the muscles likewise, we have to assume a 
sense of difference, not due to quality, but to local seat. It 
may be the same as regards the feeling itself, whether we 
raise the right arm or the left ; but the two feelings enter into 
distinct alliances with other feelings not the same. 

ASSOCIATES WITH PLEASURE AND PAIN. 

30. By means of contiguous association, states of 
Pleasure and Pain can, to some extent, persist, or be re- 
produced, without the original stimulus. 



ASSOCIATIONS OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 103 

Tlie extending of association to states of pleasure and pain, 
or states of feeling, or emotion generally, mnst render it a great 
power as regards onr happiness. By a reference to the facts, 
we can ascertain how far the principle operates in this direc- 
tion. A familiar example is furnished by onr likings for objects 
and places, after long connexion with them. 

The pleasnres of the Senses are nsnally reflected by things 
that are their canses, or by certain regular accompaniments. 
Thus we connect the enjoyment of exercise with onr instru- 
ments of sport or gymnastic ; the pleasures of repose with an 
easy chair, a sofa, or a bed ; and the pleasure of riding with a 
horse and carriage. The sight of food, and its preparation, 
recalls something of the delight of eating ; the scantily in- 
dulged child is fascinated by the mere view of the pastry- 
cook's window. The representation of fragrant flowers gives 
an agreeable recollection of the fragrance. 

The pains of the Senses could be still more decisively ap- 
pealed to. All objects that have severely pained us are painful 
to encounter. It takes a certain effort, to overcome the re- 
pugnance to the instruments of a severe surgical operation. 

It cannot be contended that such associated pleasures and 
pains are individually of any great force, as compared with 
the originals ; the fractional value of each echo is but small. 
But a total result, very far from insignificant, may be gained, 
by accumulating around us a great many things associated 
with our pleasures, and reflecting a number of our happy 
moments. The sportsman's trophies, the traveller's curiosities, 
the naturalist's collections made by himself, the student's 
prizes, the engineer's models, are able to revive an occasional 
glow of foregone excitement. 

31. The law of this association may be assumed to 
accord with the case of different senses (§ 26). We have 
already assumed that there may be a good, or a bad, 
memory for pleasure as such, and for pain as such ; while, 
in regard to special modes of pleasure and pain, as in the 
several senses, the retentiveness will vary with the good- 
ness of the sense in other respects. 

We have formerly seen that a full and accurate memory 
for pleasure and for pain is the intellectual basis, both of pru- 
dence as regards self, and of sympathy as regards others. 
This may be a general feature of the character, applicable to 
pleasures and pains as such. Still, we must suppose the 
general power greatly modified according to the class or local 



104 RETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

origin. A high endowment for colour will naturally include 
the retentiveness for the pleasures and the pains of colour. 
So, the circumstances that direct attention upon any sense will 
impress, not only its intellectual elements, but its pleasures 
and pains. 

The revival of a foregone pleasure by force of memory 
must be measured by the amount of change it makes on the 
present condition of the mind, as otherwise occasioned. In a 
happy mood, we are liable to happy recollections, and repel 
the opposite; but in this case, the pleasurable state represents 
the present iniluence, and not the past. 

32. The Special Emotions, by being directed habitually 
on the same object, become Affections. 

After the feeling of Love or Tenderness has been often 
aroused in connexion with the same person, a habitual or cus- 
tomary regard is induced, of greater power than the original 
attraction. The memories of the past then add their power 
to heighten the present impression. This influence, however, 
is chiefly manifested in neutralizing the deadening influence 
of familiarity. The recollected warmth of past moments keeps 
up a glow, when the present stimulation has lost its influence. 
Past associations of tender feeling will even overcome causes 
of positive dislike. 

So, Anger repeated generates hatred. Pear may take on a 
habitual, and thence more aggravated form. The Egotistic 
passions are notably strengthened, after having often run in the 
same channel without opposition. The religious sentiment is 
converted into an affection, by being made frequently to arise 
in connexion with the object of worship. 

33. The Emotions may spread themselves over col- 
lateral and indifferent objects. 

We have here a more testing case of association. The acci- 
dental connexions with the objects of our love, anger, fear, 
egotism, suffice to recall the feelings, and have a value on that 
account. Hence tokens of friendship, relics, places, acquire a 
deep hold of our affections. 

This is carried to the utmost in religion. Holy places, 
symbols, rites, formalities, language, reflect and magnify the 
feelings towards the main object of worship ; and the difficulty 
ever has been to keep them from wholly usurping, by their 
sensuous facilities, the place of the unseen Deity. 

Human authority avails itself of such associations, in order 



INTEREST OF MEANS TO ENDS. 105 

to extend its influence. Official robes and symbols, a cere- 
monial of obeisance and deference, solemnities in the investi- 
ture to office, forms observed in degrading and punishing, 
have the effect of diffusing the respect for authority in civil 
society. The Romans, who were the greatest inventors in the 
substance of law, were also the most attentive to its forms ; 
such attention being partly the cause, and partly the effect, of 
their great regard to authority in the worst of times. 

Those formalities that have an intrinsic expressiveness, as 
bending, prostration, passing under the yoke, are necessarily 
more impressive than what is intrinsically unmeaning. 

34. Association transfers the interest of an End of 
pursuit to the Means. 

The familiar example of this is money. Allied in the first 
instance with the delights that it obtains, and the relief from 
numerous pains, it becomes at last an object of affection in 
itself, and is preferred, in its unemployed state, to all pur- 
chasable gratifications. 

The circumstances that favour the transference are such as 
these : — Money is a tangible, measurable, permanent posses- 
sion; the pleasures obtained by it being often fugitive, are apt to 
leave a feeling of regret, as if they had cost too much. The 
mind easily learns to derive more satisfaction from the per- 
manent possibility, than from the perishing actuality ; espe- 
cially such minds as are more susceptible to fear for the future 
than to present enjoyment. 

The influence of early penury and privation in disposing to 
avarice is of itself an example of associated feeling, as well as 
a contributing cause to the love of money unspent. 

The accessions of distinction and power, attached to the 
possession of wealth, necessarily enrich the agreeable associa- 
ciations connected with it. 

The feeling of Property, in its full comprehension, contains 
a mass of blended sentiment, and of piled-up associations, 
that can scarcely be tracked out in their detail. The things 
that serve so many of the primary uses of life, become also 
the subject of mingled pride and affection. Property in land 
has charms of its own ; it is an impressive object to the eye 
and to the mind, and involves both present influence, and 
the memory of ancient privileges. The possession of a spot 
of land is the most powerful of all known motives to 
industry. 



106 KETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

Another example of means converted into ends by trans- 
ferred feeling is the attachment to forms of business, as book- 
keeping, legal and technical formalities, even after they have 
ceased to answer their ends. This is an element in the con- 
servation of laws and formalities whose spirit has evaporated. 

The regard to truth is, and ought to be, an all-powerful 
sentiment, from its being entwined in a thousand ways with 
the welfare of human society. We are not to be surprised, if 
an element of such importance as a means, should be often 
regarded as an absolute end, to be pursued irrespective of con- 
sequences, whether near or remote. 

35. Many objects of Fine Art derive their charm from 
associations. 

Fine Art contains effects intrinsically pleasing, as sweet 
and harmonious sounds ;. colours and their harmonies ; curved 
lines ; proportions in general. 

Other effects are due. to association with pleasing qualities. 
Thus, the hues and complexion of health are not the most 
pleasing colours intrinsically. There is nothing in breadth of 
chest, development of muscle, size of bone, to give a primitive 
delight in connexion with the manly figure ; but the connexion 
of these qualities with physical power gives them an adventi- 
tious charm. A large cranial development would not be in- 
teresting in itself; viewed as disproportion, it might be even 
unpleasing. But as indicating mental power it is agreeable to 
behold. 

The lustre of a polished surface is intrinsically pleasing ; 
there is. a farther pleasure when it is connected with ease in 
machinery, or with cleanliness in household management. 

The celebrated theory of Alison consisted in attributing all 
the pleasures of Beauty, to associations with primary modes 
of the agreeable ; which primary modes, would of course not 
themselves be admitted into the aesthetic circle. The follow- 
ing out of this theory led the author to collect examples of 
borrowed or associated emotions, although in many of his 
instances, primitive effects could be assigned. 

The following are some of his illustrations for the Sublime. 
' All sounds are in general sublime, which are associated with 
ideas of great Power or Might ; the Noise of a Torrent ; the Fall 
of a Cataract ; the Uproar of a Tempest ; the Explosion of Gun- 
powder ; the Dashing of the Waves, &c.' Most of these sounds, 
hoY/ever, produce a strong effect by their intensity and volume, 
without regard to what they suggest. More in point are the fol- 
lowing. ' That the Notes or Cries of some animals are Sublime, 



FINE ART ASSOCIATIONS*. ]07 

every one knows : the Eoar of the Lion r the Growling of Bears, 
the Howling of Wolves, the Scream of the Eagle.. In all these 
cases, those are the notes of animals remarkable for their strength, 
and formidable for their ferocity.' As illustrations of Beauty, he 
gives the following : — ' The Bleating of a Lamb is beautiful in a 
fine day in spring; the Lowing of a Cow at a distance, amid the 
scenery of a pastoral landscape in summer. The Gall of a Goat 
among rocks is strikingly beautiful, as expressing wildness and 
independence. The Hum of the Beetle is beautiful on a fine 
summer evening, as appearing to suit the stillness and repose of 
that pleasing season. The twitter of the swallow is beautiful in 
the morning, and seems to be expressive of the cheerfulness of 
that time/ 

36. The Language of the Feelings, both in their natural 
manifestations, and in their verbal expression, has to be 
acquired. 

The meaning of the smile and the frown is learnt in 
infancy by observing what circumstances they go along with. 
The various modifications of the features, tones, and gestures 
for pleasure, pain, love, anger, fear, wonder, are connected 
with known occasions that show what they mean. Animals 
understand this language. There is a certain intrinsic effi- 
cacy in some modes of expression, as when soft and gentle 
tones are used for affection, and harsh, emphatic utterances 
for anger ; but the play of the features has no original mean- 
ing, it must be understood by experience. 

Verbal expression greatly enlarges the compass of the 
language of the feelings. Every emotion has its charac- 
teristic forms of speech, expressing its shades with very 
great delicacy. Poets, who have to depict and excite the 
emotions, require an unusual command of these forms, and of 
all the images and associated circumstances that have the 
power to resuscitate the varieties of feeling. 

37. The Signs of Happiness in others have a cheering 

effect on ourselves. 

It is a part of our pleasures to see happy beings around us, 
and especially those that have the power of expressing their 
feelings in a lively manner. Children and animals, in their happy 
moods, impart a certain tone of gaiety to a spectator. On the 
other hand, the wretched, the downcast, and the querulous, are 
apt to chill and depress those in their company. There is a 
satisfaction in merely beholding, or even in imagining, the appear- 
ances and accompaniments of superior happiness, which probably 
accounts in part for the disposition to do homage to the wealthy, 
the powerful, the renowned, and the successful among mankind. 



108 RETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

38. The happiness of our later life is in great part 
made up of the pleasurable memories of early years. 

The early period of life, so favourable to acquirement 
generally, is adapted to the storing up of pleasures and pains. 
The same pleasure, happening in yonth and iu middle age, 
will not be equally remembered as a cheering association in 
advanced life. The joys of early years have thus an additional 
value. A pinched, severe, and ascetic bringing-up will sen- 
sibly depress the tone of the whole future life ; scarcely any 
amount of subsequent good fortune will suffice to redeem the 
waste. 

39. In the Moral Sentiment, association counts for a 
share, although the extent of the influence is variously 
estimated. 

It is only in accordance with all the other facts of asso- 
ciated feelings, that if a certain kind of conduct, say theft, or 
evil speaking, is constantly made the subject of punishment, 
censure, or disapprobation, an associative growth will be 
formed between the conduct and the infliction of pain ; and 
the individual will recoil from it with all the repugnance 
acquired during this conjunction between it and painful feel- 
ings. The general principle is confirmed by the actual facts ; 
those that have received a careful moral education are almost 
as superior, in their moral conduct, to the offspring of 
dissolute parents, as the educated man is to the uneducated 
in any other respect. 

The conditions of progress in these moral acquirements 
are worthy of being specified. The natural and predisposing 
endowments are the good retentiveness for pleasure and 
pain generally, constituting the natural gift of Prudence, 
and the tendency to enter into the pleasures and pains of 
others (called Sympathy). To these must be added, as a 
negative condition, the moderate degree of the counter im- 
pulses (which will be specified in another place). General 
retentiveness would apply to this acquirement. Repetition, 
or assiduous iteration, must co-operate under circumstances 
favourable to the impressiveness of the lesson : which circum- 
stances vary according as the associations are intended to be 
chiefly of fear, or of love. Moreover, for moral discipline as 
for everything else, a certain portion of the life and the 
thoughts must be left free from other pressing cares and 
acquisitions. 



FEELINGS BKING UP THEIK OBJECTS. 109 

The association between objects and feelings also enables 
feelings to bring up their associated objects. This bond, how- 
ever, rarely operates singly ; an emotion, as love, anger, or fear, 
is not usually associated with one object in particular ; when 
it is so, it is able to suggest the object. Most generally, the 
association with feeling is one determining link among others, 
in a compound association. 

ASSOCIATIONS OF VOLITION. 

40. In Volition, there is involved a process of con- 
tiguous association between specific actions and states of 
feeling. 

This is the third element in the growth of the Will, as 
already described ; Spontaneity and Self- conservation being 
the two other elements. The law of Self- conservation would 
determine the continuance of an action that feeds a pleasure, 
and the abatement of an action concurring with pain; but 
does not enable us to begin a specific movement that would 
bring pleasure or remove pain. This is believed to be at first 
a fortuitous concurrence, made to adhere after a certain 
amount of repetition. 

When the mature will is regarded in its whole compass, it 
contains a wide range of successive growths, the earliest 
being attended with the greatest difficulties. These will be 
traced, once for all, in the department of the Will. 

NATURAL OBJECTS. 

41. Our permanent Eecollections, or Ideas, of the Con- 
crete objects of external nature, consist of associated sen- 
sible qualities. 

The concrete combinations that we call natural objects, in 
most instances, affect a plurality of senses. The distant starry 
sphere, reveals itself only to sight ; but all terrestrial things, in 
some form or other, appeal to several senses. A piece of 
quartz, besides being seen, has a characteristic touch ; an 
orange has taste and odour in addition. 

The present case, therefore, merely applies the association 
of a plurality of senses to the individual things making up the 
object *world (the conjunctions or groupings of things will be 
viewed separately). The complete image of a mineral, plant, 
or animal, is the enduring association of all its sensible im- 
pressions, the lead being taken by sight. 



110 RETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

The conditions of rapid and abundant acquirement in this 
region of things are, — the adhesiveness of the senses, and 
chiefly of sight, and the circumstances that determine atten- 
tionorconcentrationofmind. 

42. The Naturalist mind represents the maximum of 
disinterested associations. 

The purpose of the Naturalist is, not selective, but ex- 
haustive ; whatever be the department that he applies himself 
to, he notices every species belonging to it. In order to 
lighten the load of detail, and for other reasons, he studies 
classification and orderly method ; but, notwithstanding the 
utmost economy, his mind must retain a vast number of the 
sensible aggregates constituting the specific objects of the 
natural world. He must possess a high degree of sensible, 
and especially visual, retentiveness ; his turn of mind must be 
objective, or towards the exercise of the senses ; and his life 
must be largely engrossed by the exercise of observation. He 
must not have any strong emotional likings, of the nature of 
preference; having to give an account of everything that 
exists, because it exists, his main delight should be to attain 
impartiality and exhaustive completeness ; he should be espe- 
cially charmed by the arts of classification and method adapted 
to this end. 

43. In minds generally, the associations of natural 
objects are generally ruled by the feelings. 

Next to frequency, or familiarity of encounter, and often 
before it, in point of associating efficacy, is the interest awak- 
ened in objects either by their striking qualities, or by their 
uses in the economy of life. The one is the artistic preference, 
and the other the industrial. The gems, the more attractive 
flowers, shrubs, and trees, the animals distinguished for their 
imposing qualities, are singled out for recollection, in prefer- 
ence to the indifferent specimens of each kind. And still 
more universally stimulating to the attention is the influence 
of our wants, uses and conveniences, our occupations and pur- 
suits. 

NATURAL AND HABITUAL CONJUNCTIONS. 

44. The things habitually or frequently conjoined in 
our experience are conjoined in our recollection. 

The things about us that maintain fixed places and rela- 
tions become connected in idea, as they are in reality ; and 
the mind thus reflects the habitual environment. The house 



VARIEGATED IMAGERY OF THE WORLD. Ill 

we live in, with its furniture and arrangements, the street, 
town, or rural scene that we encounter daily, by their inces- 
sant iteration, cohere into abiding recollections, any one part 
easily bringing all the rest to the mind's view. Our know- 
ledge of such familiar objects is made up of the connexion of 
each with its associated objects. Our knowledge of a man or 
woman includes the external circumstances constantly con- 
joined with him or her — locality, family, and occupation. 
The conditions favouring the adhesiveness are Repetition and 
special Interest in what is near ourselves. 

For the easy retention of the variegated imagery of the 
world, the prime requisite is powerful retentiveness for Colour. 
This gives to the mind a pictorial character, a grasp of the 
Concrete of nature, with all the emotional interests thence 
arising. It is required by the Naturalist, and is indispensable 
to the Painter and to the Poet. Also, in large operations, 
involving the external world, as in the military art, 
engineering, the laying out of towns, plantations and gardens, 
the visual endowment is the predominating circumstance ; 
while the optica], or colour element, is still more important 
than the element of form. 

45. Among aggregates or conjunctions, may be in- 
cluded Maps, Diagrams, and Pictorial Representations. 

These artificial conjunctions are a large part of our higher 
knowledge ; they bring to view, by a medium of representa- 
tion, what we have no access to, in the reality. The reten- 
tiveness for them follows the same laws, and is influenced by 
the same conditions. According as they depend upon light 
and shade and colour, on the one hand, or upon outline form, 
on the other, they exercise the optical, or the muscular ad- 
hesiveness of the sight. When the complicacy is great, as in 
a map, or a drawing, the varieties of light and colour are the 
maia fact ; in mere skeleton diagrams, visible form is the 
principal. The special interest varies according to circum- 
stances. To the mind of Dr. Arnold, a map had intense fas- 
cination ; it was suggestive of the multifarious human interest 
of his recollections of history. 

SUCCESSIONS. 

46. The phenomena of the world may be divided into 
the Co-existing and the Successive, although, so far as the 
mind is concerned, the generic fact is Succession. 



112 RETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

If we except such cases as— complex and coinciding mus- 
cular movements, the concurrence of sensations, through 
different senses, at the same moment, and our mixed or 
blended emotions, — our mental perceptions are all successive ; 
we must shift the attention from point to point in viewing a 
landscape, and must make a corresponding series of jumps, 
even in the recollection. Go-existence, as we have seen, is 
an artificial growth, formed from a certain peculiar class of 
mental successions. The subjective mind, in its power of 
attention, is single and confined; it overtakes the object 
world, only by movement in time. 

Still, after Co -existence has been established as something 
distinct, we recognize, as its contrast, phenomena of Succes- 
sion. All such phenomena, if by their uniformity or regu- 
larity, they are iterated to the view, give rise to a corre- 
sponding association in our ideas.. 

Successions of Cycle. The successions that perform a 
cycle, as day and night, the moon's phases, the seasons of the 
year, the routine of occupations and professions — are en- 
grained on our recollection, and make part of our expectation 
of the future. 

Successions of Evolution. These are chiefly exemplified in 
living beings. It is the very nature of organized life to evolve 
itself through a series of changes ; and this series, which is 
characteristic for different species, enters into our knowledge 
of living beings. To know a plant we must know it at every 
stage. A certain number of observations made upon each 
kind gives coherence in the mind to the successive aspects. 
Wherever we have any special interest, as in farming, gar- 
dening, rearing stock, we become acquainted with every phase 
in the order of development. The evolution of the human 
being is impressed in our mind by repetition, and by the 
quickening stimulus of our interest in humanity. Evolution 
farther applies to the course of disease, to any long operation, 
as a process of law, and to the history of nations. When 
there is a slight uncertainty in the issue, the additional interest 
of plot may be roused. 

Apart from the special interest in the unwinding of the 
future, the associations of evolution are, in principle, not 
materially different from the associations of still life. As 
regards both Cycles and Evolutions, the laws or conditions of 
adhesion are the same as has been repeatedly stated above, 
in connexion with the aspects of the outer world. A more 
definite peculiarity belongs to the successions next to be 
named. 



IMPRESSIVENESS OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 113 

Cause and Effect Leaving out of view, for the present, 
strict scientific causation, we may advert to what is commonly 
regarded as cause and effect, namely, a sudden and impressive 
change ; as when a blow is followed by a noise and a frac- 
ture. A large part of our knowledge of nature is made up of 
these successions. 

According to the general principle of Relativity, or 
Change, we are impressed in proportion to the intensity and 
the suddenness of any effect. So marked and powerful are 
some effects, that one experience is remembered for life. The 
explosion of gunpowder, the cutting away of a support to some 
heavy body, the extinction of a life, — are so pungent and ex- 
citing, that a second occurrence is unnecessary to stamp the 
fact on the memory. The order of nature, in so far as com- 
posed of these more sudden effects, is rapidly learnt. 

The associations of things with their uses, or practical ap- 
plications, involves the stimulus of cause and effect, together 
with the farther interest of utility. A lever in itself is an un- 
exciting visible object ; in operation, it produces the excite- 
ment of change, and the gratification arising from a useful 
end. Furniture, tools, and implements generally, are, in their 
ideas, aggregates of visible appearance and tangible qualities, 
together with their superadded appearances when in use. 

The scientific properties of objects, brought out by experi- 
ment, or observed in the course of nature, often involve the 
most startling effects, and are thereby quickly impressed upon 
the mind. The distinguishing property of oxygen, to support 
combustion, is for ever remembered by means of the experi- 
ment of combustion in the pure gas. The properties of a salt 
that affect the senses strongly, are learnt at once. The de- 
composition of light by the prism is one of those startling 
appearances that the stupidest person will remember through 
the mere force of the sensation. 

The Effects produced by our own agency are additionally 
impressive. The antecedent in this case is our expended 
energy, whose familiarity makes it the type of all causation. 
There is nothing so well remembered by us, as the results of 
our own actions ; we possess the cause in ourselves, and 
there is occasionally added the charm of pride or complacency. 
Hence, in studying natural processes, we succeed best by mak- 
ing the observations and experiments for ourselves. 

The most impressive part of our knowledge of living beings 
— men and animals — consists in seeing them, now as acting, 
and now as acted on. The effects that they produce upon 



114 RETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

outward things, and the effects that outward agents produce 
upon them, are remembered by us under the stimulus of 
movement and change. There is a highly complex interest in 
watching the movements of our fellow men ; the mere excite- 
ment of change and effect is a part of the case; our sym- 
pathies, antipathies, fears, admiration, and other emotions, 
lend impressiveness to the display. Thus, what may be called 
the object part of our knowledge of human nature, depends, in 
the first place, on our visible or pictorial retentiveness, and, in 
the next place, on our susceptibility to the various feelings 
awakened by the manifestations of humanity. 

MECHANICAL ACQUISITIONS. 

We have now touched on the chief classes of things asso- 
ciated under Contiguity. To give the principles in another 
light, we will allude to the recognized departments of 
acquisition. 

Under Mechanical Acquisitions, we include the whole of 
handicraft industry and skill, as well as the use of the bodily 
members in the more obvious and universal actions of daily 
life. Whether for self-preservation and bodily comfort, for 
industry, or for sport and recreation, we have to be educated 
into a number of bodily aptitudes. 

47. In Mechanical Acquirements, the conditions are : 
(1) The endowments of the Active Organs ; (2) the deli- 
cacy of the Sense concerned ; and (3) the special Interest. 

(1) The endowments of the Active Organs are, first, mere 
muscular vigour and strength, which we must assume as a 
requisite, if only as bringing about persistency in exertion. 
Secondly, we may assume as a separate fact, involving the 
nerve centres, great Spontaneity, or the disposition to put forth 
muscular activity, which does not always go along with mus- 
cular development. Thirdly, and most vital of all, is the still 
deeper peculiarity shown in the Perception of Graduated 
Muscular expenditure and the retentiveness for muscular 
groupings. 

The first and second elements by themselves would deter- 
mine the Active Temperament — the disposition and avidity for 
bodily occupation, and the consequent readiness to apply to 
all pursuits giving scope to this prompting. The third pecu- 
liarity would most specifically contribute to the rapidity of 
acquirement in the skilled exercise of the bodily organs. 

(2) The delicacy of the special Sense concerned in the art, 



CONDITIONS OF MECHANICAL ACQUIREMENTS. 115 

is of equal, if not of greater, importance. If it is to produce 
effects of tactile delicacy, — as in surface polish, or soft consis- 
tency, — a nice touch is requisite ; if the work is judged by 
colour, the optical part of sight is demanded ; if to produce 
musical or articulate effects, the ear is involved. 

No amount of flexibility or compass of the active organ 
will enable us to rise above our discrimination of the effect pro- 
duced ; and an inferior flexibility will be greatly extended by 
the effort to comply with a delicate perception. Moreover, 
the associations of mechanical skill are, as has been seen, a 
mixture of grouped muscular movements and situations with 
sensible impressions ; and the importance of the sensible part 
has been shown by the failure of the other connexions on its 
being withdrawn. 

(3) The special Interest in the work may flow from 
various sources. The possession of the active endowments is 
an inducement to exercise them, and all exercise within the 
scope of one's powers is agreeable ; while superiority is still 
more agreeable. Then, as regards the Sense : a sensibi- 
lity highly developed, say for colour, is a source of pleasure, 
as well as of discrimination. Besides these modes of interest, 
growing out of the possession of the natural aptitudes, there 
may be adventitious sources. It not unfrequently happens 
that a charm attaches to something not within the compass of 
our aptitudes. We may have sufficient musical ear to enjoy 
music, but not to acquire the musical art ; and the same with 
colour. We then have a sort of admiration for a power that 
gives us a pleasure, and that we do not possess. Finally, 
whatever circumstances give an artificial value to mechanical 
acquirements, incline our devotion to them, and so facilitate 
our progress. 

48. In the conduct of mechanical training, regard is to 
be had to the vigour and freshness of the system ; and the 
exercises must be continued long enough to bring the 
energies into full play. 

The physical vigour and freshness, both of the moving 
organs, and of the senses, being a prime requisite, mechanical 
drill is most effectual in the early hours of the day, and after 
the refreshment of meals. The exercise should be continued 
long enough to draw the circulation and the nervous agency 
copiously towards the organs exercised ; at the outset of an 
operation, there is both a stiffness of the parts and a feeling 
of fatigue, both transitory ; the blood as yet has not found its 



116 EETENTIVENESS— IAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

way to the members engaged. When, at a later stage, genuine 
fatigue comes on, the exercise should cease; the cohesive 
power is then at a minimum. In the army, recruits are 
drilled three times a-day — early morning, after breakfast, and 
after dinner- — for an hour and a half to two hours each time. 
The apprentice at a trade learns by fits and snatches, and 
mixes up the performance of work with the acquisition of 
new powers. The pains special to the learner are of two 
sorts — fatigue of the attention, and the exhaustion caused by 
repeated trials and failures. 

ACQUISITIONS IN LANGUAGE. 

49. First, Oral Language. This acquisition involves 
an active endowment — Articulation by the Voice ; and a 
sense — the Ear. 

The beginnings of articulation belong to the early stage of 
the voluntary acquirements. The child must first arrive at 
the power of articulating single letters and syllables ; these 
are then united into words ; and words are conjoined into 
sentences. 

As in the case of the Active organs for mechanical acquisi- 
tion generally, we must assume as the conditions of articulate 
cohesiveness, (1) the muscular vigour of the larynx and asso- 
ciated members, (2) the vocal spontaneity, and (3) most im- 
portant of all, the special discrimination and retentiveness 
attaching to the vocal movements, connected, we may suppose, 
with the high organization of the allied motor centres. 

Next, is the delicac}^ of the Ear for Articulate Effects, 
implying both discrimination and retentiveness, the first being 
accepted as a criterion of the second. This endowment may 
be looked upon as related to the special nerve centres of hear- 
ing (on the passive or ingoing side of the brain). 

When these two natural endowments stand high, the 
acquisition of words and of verbal sequences will proceed with 
proportionate rapidity. If there be a good general adhesive- 
ness in addition, the progress will be still greater. Moreover, 
language is the acquisition of words, not by themselves, 
but in association with things. Hence, the next condition : — 

50. As language is an association of names with 
objects or meanings, we must include, as a condition, the 
law of heterogeneous adhesion. * 

That is to say, we are to look to the goodness of the asso- 



SPECIAL INTEREST IN LANGUAGE. 117 

ciations (inter se) of speech on the one hand, and of the 
objects named on the other, as formerly explained. We 
learn much sooner the names of things that impress us, than 
of those that do not. Each man's vocabulary is made np, by 
preference, of the names of the objects that interest himself; 
the Naturalist knows more names of his own department than 
of other departments. 

51. Besides the mere vocabulary, Language includes a 
great number of definite- arrangements of words, with a 
view to its various ends, and subject to grammatical and 
other laws. 

We have not only to name things, but to make affirma- 
tions about them, and, in other ways to unite or compose 
consecutive statements. These forms may be exceedingly 
numerous and varied for the same meaning or purpose. Their 
ready acquisition is almost exclusively governed by the cir- 
cumstances of pure verbal adhesion. The fluent orator, the 
diffuse and illustrative writer, the poet, must excel in mere 
verbal abundance, irrespective of the limits of the subject 
matter. 

52. While the acquisition of language must depend, in 
the first instance, upon the opportunities of hearing and 
speaking, the effect of Repetition is greatly modified by 
special interest. 

Of the mass of language that passes through the ear, only 
a selection is retained, and that selection, although partly de- 
pending on iteration, is also greatly dependent on our interest 
in the subjects, and our liking for special modes of describing 
the same subject. 

A man's vocabulary will show w T ho he has kept company 
with, what books he has studied, what departments he knows ; 
it will show farther his predominating tastes, emotions, or 
likings. We see in Milton, for example, his peculiar erudi- 
tion, and also his strong fascination for whatever was large, 
lofty, vast, powerful, or sublime. In Shakespeare, the ad- 
hesiveness for language as such, was so great, that it seemed 
to include every species of terms in nearly equal proportions. 
Only a very narrow examination enables us to detect his pre- 
ferences, or his lines of study, and veins of more special 
interest. 

Many terms and forms of language are permanently en- 
grained by some purely accidental concentration of the mind, 



1 18 KETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

or awakening of attention. Thus, when we happen to have 
felt very much the want of a word, before being told it, the im- 
pression is a durable one. Any interesting circumstance attend- 
ing the utterance of a phrase stamps it for ever. The emphasis 
of a great orator, or actor, will impress his peculiarity of 
language. 

53. As regards Elocution, the powers of the voice are 
subservient to the Ear for Cadence. 

The Ear for Cadence is probably a sense partaking both 
of the musical and the articulate ear. Either of these alone, 
in the greatest perfection, with the other deficient, would not 
suffice for the actor or the elocutionist. The fine sense of 
cadence stores the mind with many strains or melodies of 
utterance, which the orator reproduces in his oral delivery, 
choosing, if need be, the words that give most scope to the 
melody. 

The purest exercise of verbal adhesiveness is seen in vocal 
mimicry, which demands the endowments of voice, articulate 
ear, and ear for cadence, with little besides. 

54. Written language appeals to the sense of Arbitrary 
Visible Forms. 

Written symbols depend for their adhesiveness on the 
muscular endowment of the eye and its related nerve centres. 
A well-known aid to verbal memory is to write with one's 
own hand what has to be remembered. The effect of this 
is not simply to add a new line of adhesion, the arm and 
finger recollections — although we might remember by these — 
but to impress the forms upon the eye, through the concen- 
trated attention of the act of copying. 

55. Short modes of acquiring languages have been 
often sought ; but there are nc rules special to language. 
Any undue stimulus of the attention to one thing is at 
the expense of something else. 

Health, regularity, method, the absence of distractions, 
are the conditions favourable to all acquisition ; granting 
these, each mind has a certain amount of adhesive aptitude, 
which may be distributed in one way or in another, but 
cannot be added to. A language involves a certain definite 
number of adhesive growths, drawing upon the adhesive 
capability to a proportionate degree. What is spent upon 
that must be taken from something else. It will afterwards 



INFORMATION CONVEYED IN LANGUAGE. 119 

be seen, that acquisition is economized by the detection of 
similarities ; and this has a special application to the study of 
languages that are cognate to one another. It is now the 
custom for good teachers of the classical, as well as of the con- 
tinental, tongues, to lay open the deeper affinities with our 
own, so as thereby to promote the memory of the vocables. 

56. A good verbal adhesiveness is of value in the me- 
mory of knowledge or information conveyed in language. 

The repetition of speeches, poetry, &c, by rote is an 
exercise of the verbal memory. Sir Walter Scott had this 
power, although doubtless it was greatest where the subject 
inspired his feelings. Macaulay was distinguished by his ver- 
bal memory. Such men, by their memory for words, remem- 
bered also the information attached to the words. In the 
extreme cases of this endowment, the memory of an exposition 
or discourse is consistent with a total ignorance of the meaning. 

RETENTIVENESS IN SCIENCE. 

57. Knowledge, as Science, is liable, in a greater or less 
degree, to be clothed in artificial and uninteresting sym- 
bols, in which guise it has to be held in the mind. 

Familiar and matter-of-fact knowledge may be embraced 
under the sensible and concrete forms of nature : the ris- 
ing of the sun is a phenomenon of visible succession. But 
in Astronomy, the gorgeous march of the heavenly bodies ap- 
pears as a mass of algebraical calculations. 

58. Sciences are divided into Object Sciences — those 
of external nature, and Subject Sciences, or those relating 
to mmd. 

The Object Sciences range between the most Concrete, 
as Natural History, and the most Abstract, as Mathematics. 

In the more Concrete and Experimental Sciences, as the 
Natural History group (Mineralogy, Botany, Zoology, &c), 
Geography, Anatomy, Chemistry, Heat, Electricity, — the 
actual appearances to the senses constitute a large part of 
the subject matter ; hence in them, the Concrete mind (whose 
starting point is Colour) will be at home. The number or 
detail of the visible aspects is such as to need this endowment. 
Still, as sciences, they involve generalization and general 
notions, and cannot be divorced from the arbitrary symbolism 
or machinery suited to the high generalities ; hence they may 



120 RETENT1VENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

"be regarded as the mixed type of Science. The pure type is 
seen in the next class. 

The Abstract Sciences are Mathematics, the mathematical 
parts of Natural Philosophy, much of Chemistry and Physi- 
ology, and the more technical parts of the other Concrete 
Sciences. These, when in character, are represented to the 
mind by numbers, by line diagrams, by symbols and signs, 
most frequently adopted from the alphabet, but united in un- 
familiar and repulsive combinations ; while many of the 
generalities are expressed in ordinary language, but in the 
most abstract terms of language. 

As mere sense presentation, this machinery is laid hold of 
by the eye for form reposing on the muscular retentiveness of 
vision. It is, as it were, a variety of written language, also 
named orally so as to obtain a concurring hold on the ear. 
The interest of colour is set aside ; the forms have no aesthetic 
charm. The motive that quickens the natural adhesiveness 
of the eye for forms, must be some extraneous interest. 

That interest is the interest of Truth in its comprehensive- 
ness or generality. This is the inducement to lay up in the 
mind uninteresting forms, and to endure the labour attendant 
on abstract notions and reasonings. 

59. The Subject Sciences, those of Mind proper, are 
grounded on self-consciousness, or introspective attention. 

Although the science of mind includes many phenomena 
of an Object character, — namely, the bodily manifestations of 
mind, and the actions of living beings, as prompted by their 
feelings, — yet the essential properties of mind are known only 
in each one's self-consciousness. 

There being no special medium of observation for the 
phenomena of mind, like the eye, the ear, or the touch, for the 
departments of the object world, we must follow a different 
course in endeavouring to assign the special attitude for dis- 
criminating and retaining the self-conscious states generally. 

60. The special circumstances favouring the accumu- 
lation of knowledge in regard to mental, or subject states, 
are the Absence, or moderate pressure, of Object regards, 
and Interest in the department. 

As we cannot appeal to a positive endowment, a mental 
eye, analogous to the bodily eye for colour, we may sup- 
pose that the waking consciousness, being divided between 
Object and Subject regards, may in each person incline more 



CONDITIONS OF SUBJECTIVE ACQUIREMENTS. 121 

to one tlian to the other. Given a certain native power of 
intellect, the direction taken by it, will determine the intellec- 
tual character. If the Object regards are exclusive or over- 
powering, the knowledge of the Subject, as such, will be at 
its lowest ebb. 

The circumstances favouring the Objective attention can 
be assigned, with great probability, and their remission would 
therefore account for the Subjective attention. These objective 
circumstances are, first, great spontaneous muscular activity 
in all its forms, and next, a high development of the senses 
most allied with object properties, as sight, touch, and hear- 
ing. Where the forces of the system are profusely determined 
towards bodily energies, the character is rendered pre-emi- 
nently objective ; whereas, not only persons differently con- 
stituted, but the same persons under advancing years, illness, 
and confinement of the energies, are thrown more upon self- 
consciousness, and exhibit the consequences of this attitude, 
in. greater knowledge of the feelings, more sympathy with 
others, and an ethical or moralizing tendency. Again, as re- 
gards the Object senses, a strong susceptibility to colour, or 
to music, or to tactile properties, operates in the direction of 
the object regards ; if these sensibilities are only average, or 
below average, in a mind of great general powers, a large 
share of attention will be given to subject states. On the 
other extreme, great organic sensibility inclines the regards 
to the subject- self. 

61. In order to indicate the medium, or organ, of 
mental study, Eeid and Stewart designated a faculty for 
that purpose, under the name ■ Consciousness.' Hamil- 
ton spoke of the same power as the ' Presentative Fa- 
culty ' for Self. 

' Reflexion ' had been previously used by Locke, to mean 
the source of our knowledge of the Subject world ; the name, 
however, was not well chosen. The word l Consciousness * is 
preferable : but if consciousness, be comprehensively applied 
to the Object as well as to the Subject regards, the qualified 
form f Self-consciousness ' is still more suitable ; it is also 
justified by common usage. 

Hamilton calls the first source of our knowledge of facts, 
the faculty of Presentation. The Senses are the Presen- 
tative medium for the object world ; Self- consciousness is the 
Presentation of the subject world. 



122 BETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY". 

BUSINESS, OK PRACTICAL LIFE. 

sariniG*! <8*rni 

62. The Education of the higher Industry, as opposed 
to mere handicraft, varies with the different departments. 
Among the elements involved, we may specify (1) an 
acquaintance with Material forms and properties, (2) cer- 
tain technical Formalities akin to science, and (3) a prac- 
tical knowledge of Human beings. is ill 

(1) The knowledge of a certain class of natural properties 
is involved in the various industrial arts, — in Agriculture, 
Manufactures, and Commerce. This is not essentially distinct 
from scientific knowledge, although differently selected and 
circumscribed. The scientific attribute, generality, is not so 
much aimed at, as precision or certainty in the particular 
applications. The steel- worker must have a minute acquaint- 
ance with the properties of steel ; the cotton-spinner must 
know all the shades and varieties of the material. 

(2) The formalities of book-keeping, and the modes of 
reckoning money transactions, are of the nature of arbitrary 
forms, like Arithmetic and Mathematics. 

(3) In many practical departments, as statesmanship, 
oratory, teaching, &c, hnman beings are the material, and the 
knowledge of them, in the practical shape, is a prime requisite. 
The same knowledge is of avail to the employer of workmen, 
and to the trader who has to negotiate in the market with 
other human beings. 

The comprehensive Interest in the present case is worldly 
means, which is a far higher spur to attention than truth. 
There are special likings for special avocations, owing to the 
incidents of each suiting different individualities. Another 
biassing circumstance is the greater honour attached to certain 
professions. 

There is a close relation, in point of mental aptitude, 
between the higher walks of material Industry and the Con- 
crete or Experimental Sciences; and between the formal de- 
partments, as Law and Mathematics. The management of 
human beings would depend upon the aptitude for the sub- 
ject sciences. 

^9oq 
ACQUISITIONS IN THE FINE ARTS. 

63. Fine Art constructions are intended to give a cer- 
tain species of pleasure, named the pleasure of Beauty, 
Taste, or ^Esthetic emotion. 



CONDITIONS OF FINE AKT ACQUIREMENTS. 123 

The usually recognized Fine Arts are Architecture, Sculp- 
ture, Painting, Poetry, Dramatic display, Refined Address, 
Dancing, Music. Their common end is refined pleasure, 
although their means or instrumentality is different. They 
are divided between the Eye and the Ear, the two higher 
senses. Poetry and Acting combine both. 

64. The most general conditions of acquisition in Fine 
Art are (1) Mechanical Aptitude, (2) Adhesiveness for the 
Subject-matter of the Art, and (3) Artistic sensibility. 

(1) In those Arts where the artist is a mechanical work- 
man, he requires corresponding Active endowments. The 
singer, the actor, the orator, need powers of voice (strength, 
spontaneity, and the condition that determines alike discrimi- 
nation and retentiveness) : the actor and orator are farther in 
want of corresponding powers of feature and gesture. The 
instrumental performer of music, the painter, and the sculptor, 
are workers with the hand. The architect and poet are 
exempted from the present condition. 

(2) An adhesiveness for the Subject or Material of the 
Art is of consequence as storing the mind with available re- 
collections and forms. The painter and poet should have 
extensive memories for the pictorial in nature, as mere visible 
display, without regard to beauty in the first instance. The 
poet should have, in addition, a mind well stored with 
vocables, and their melodious and metrical combinations. 
The actor should have an eye and memory for gestures. The 
musician would derive advantage from an adhesiveness for 
sounds as such. 

(3) The Artistic feeling is the guide to the employment of 
these powers and resources, and the motive for concentrating 
attention upon such objects as gratify it. The Artist must 
have a special and distinguishing sensibility for the proper 
effects of his art; proportions in Architecture, fine curves 
and groupings in Sculpture, colour harmonies in Painting, 
melody in Music, and so on. To have a large command of 
material, without artistic selection is to fail in the proper 
sphere of art ; a pictorial mind, without aesthetic feeling, might 
make a naturalist or a geographer, but not a painter or a 
poet. The profuse command of original conceptions was ap- 
parent in Bacon, but not a poet's delicacy in applying them. 

HISTORY AND NARRATIVE. 

65. The successions of events and transactions in 
human life, remembered and related, make History. 



124 KETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY, 

The adhesion for witnessed or narrated events is often 
looked upon as a characteristic exhibition of memory. Bacon, 
in dividing human knowledge, according to our faculties, 
assigned History to Memory, Philosophy to Reason, Poetry 
to Imagination. 

66. Transactions witnessed impress themselves as Sen- 
sations, principally of Sight and of Sound, and as Actions, 
when the spectator is also an agent. 

A pageant, ceremony, or other pictorial display commends 
ifeelf to the pictorial memory. Most active demonstrations 
are accompanied, more or less, with effects of sound ; human 
agency is usually attended with the exercise of speech. 

Historical transactions have an interest with human beings 
generally, although with some more than others. Hence the 
memory for witnessed events, being the result of a stimulated 
attention, is usually good. 

Sometimes a single transaction is, in ifcs minutest details, 
remembered for life. This is owing partly to the length of 
time occupied in attending to it, partly to the interest excited, 
and partly to the frequent mental repetition and verbal narra- 
tion afterwards. 

67. Transactions narrated obtain the aid of the Verbal 
memory. 

A narrative is a complex stream of imagery and language. 
In so far as we can realize the picture of the events, we con- 
nect the succession pictorially ; in so far as we remember the 
flow of words, we retain it verbally. Probably, in most cases, 
the memory is formed now by one bond, now by another ; 
different minds portioning out the recollection differently 
between the two. 

OUR PAST LIFE. 

68. The complex current of each one's existence is 
made up of all oar Actions, Sensations, Emotions, Thoughts, 
as they happened. 

Our own actions are retained in various shapes. 

(1) Inasmuch as they produce a constantly altered spec- 
tacle about us, they form alliances with our sensations. A 
walk in the country, although a fact of energy or activity, is 
remembered as a series of pictorial aspects. The same is true 
of our executed work ; an artist's finished picture is the em- 
bodiment of his labour for a length of time, and the easiest 
form of remembering it. 



EMBODIMENT OF OUR PAST LIFE. 125 

(2) If we remember actions as such, and apart from the 
correlative changes of sensible appearance, it is as ideal move- 
ments , for which we have a certain adhesiveness, varying no 
doubt with the motor endowments as a whole. If we re- 
member an action sufficiently to do it again, we remember it 
also ideally. We remember our verbal utterances, partly as 
connected threads of vocal exertion. Still, we rarely depend 
on this single thread. A surgeon may remember how he 
operated for stone, by his memory of hand movements ; but 
the sensible results of the different stages impress him much 
more, 

The memory of our feelings or emotions, in their pure 
subject character, as in pleasure and pain, comes under the 
proper adhesiveness of the subject states. Allusion has been 
made to the permanent recollection of states of pleasure and 
pain, as a thing variable in individuals, and of great import- 
ance in its practical results. It was also remarked that no 
law can be laid down as governing this department, no special 
endowment of sensibility pointed out, except the negation of 
extreme object regards, in a mind of good general retentive- 
ness. 

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON RETENTIYENESS. 

69. (1) There is some difficulty in establishing what we 
have named general Hetentiveness, seeing that so much de- 
pends on the special organ, and on the interest excited. Still, 
when we encounter a person distinguished as a learner gener- 
ally, with a strong bent for acquisition in all departments — 
bodily skill, languages, sciences, fine arts — we seem justified in 
representing the case as an example of adhesive power on the 
whole, and not as an aggregate of local superiorities. The 
renowned 'admirable Crichton' is a historical example of the 
class. And we find many men that are almost equally good 
in language and in science, in business and in fine art. More- 
over, the superiority of man over the lower animals is general 
and pervasive, and better expressed by a general retentiveness 
than by the sum of special and local distinctions. 

(2) There can be no question as to the superior retentive- 
ness or plasticity of early years. We cannot state with pre- 
cision the comparative adhesiveness of different ages, but from 
the time that the organs are fully under command, onward 
through life, there appears to be a steady decrease. The for- 
mation of bodily habits seems to be favoured not solely by 
nervous conditions, at their maximum in youth, but by mus- 



126 KETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

cular conditions also ; the growing stage of the muscles being 
the stage of easiest adaptation to new movements. 

As regards the mental peculiarities, the earliest periods are 
most susceptible to Moral impressions ; also to Physical habits, 
such as bodily carriage, the mechanical part of language (pro- 
nunciation), or the use of the hand as in drawing. After these, 
come the Verbal memory, and the exercise of the senses in 
Observation, with the corresponding pictorial recollections. 
The Generalizing, Abstracting, and Scientific faculties are 
much later; Arithmetic, Grammar, Geometry, Physical Science, 
&c, begin to be possible from about the tenth year onwards. 
Up to fourteen or sixteen, the concrete side of education must 
prevail with the vast majority, although, by that time, a good 
many abstract elements should be mastered, more especially 
mathematics and grammar. The basis of every aptitude, not 
of a high scientific kind, should be laid before sixteen. 

(3) The limitation of the acquirements possible to each 
person has been repeatedly noticed. There are reasons for 
believing that this limitation has for its physical counterpart 
the limited number of the nervous elements. Each distinct 
mode of consciousness, each distinct adhesive grouping, would 
appear to appropriate a distinct track of nervous communi- 
cations, involving a definite number of fibres and of cells or 
corpuscles ; and numerous as are the component fibres and 
cells of the brain fthey must be counted by millions) they 
are still limited ; one brain possesses more than another, but 
all have their limitations. 

It is hardly correct to speak of improving the Memory as 
a whole. We may, by devotion to a particular subject, make 
great acquisitions in that subject ; or we may, by habits of 
attention to a certain class of things, remember those things 
better than others ; but the plasticity on the whole, although 
susceptible of being economized, is scarcely susceptible of 
being increased. No doubt by leaving the other powers of the 
mind in abeyance — those entering into Reason, Imagination, 
&c. — and by not wasting ourselves in the excitement of the 
feelings, we may determine a certain additional portion of the 
collective mental energies to plastic acquisition ; but this is 
still to divert power, not to create it. 

(4) There is a temporary adhesiveness, serving many of 
the occasions of daily life. When we have to follow a direc- 
tion, to convey a message, to answer a question, to put a fact 
on record, a few minutes' retention is all that is necessary. 
In such instances, we fulfil the requirements before the pre- 
sent impression has died away. 



TKMPOKARY KETENTIVENESS. 127 

The next grade of adhesiveness is represented by the 
superior readiness and liveliness of recollection for things that 
have occurred within a few hours or a few days, or perhaps 
months. It is the difference between days, or weeks, and 
years of interval. The things are supposed to have gone 
completely out of mind, to have been overlaid by many newer 
impressions ; still we find that nearness in time makes a great 
difference ; that as our impressions go into the far past, with- 
out being renewed, they teud to decay ; that, after a few 
years, extinction has come over a great many that were good 
for a few months, especially such as were formed late in life. 

What is called cramming is a case of temporary adhesive- 
ness. But the reproach implied in this name attaches more 
to the circumstance that the acquisitions are made by an undue 
pressure and excitement of the brain, which can be only tem- 
porary, and ends in an exhaustion of the plastic forces. An 
even pace of acquirement, within the limits of the strength, 
is the true economy in the long run. 



CHAPTER II. 
AGREEMENT-LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

1. The statement of this law is as follows : — 

Present Actions, Sensations, Thoughts, or Emotions 
tend to revive their Like among previously oc- 
curring states. 

Contiguity joins together things that occur together, or 
that are, by any circumstance, presented to the mind at the 
same time ; as when we associate heat with light, a falling body 
with a concussion. But, in addition to this link of reproduc- 
tive connexion, we find that one thing will, by virtue of simi- 
larity, recall another separated from it in time, as when a 
portrait brings up the original. 

The second fundamental property of Intellect, termed 
Consciousness of Agreement, or Similarity, is thus a great 
power of mental reproduction, or a means of recovering past 
mental states. It was recognized by Aristotle as one of the 
links in the succession of our thoughts. 



128 AGREEMENT — LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

2. Similarity, in one form, is implied under Contiguity. 
When a contiguous bond is confirmed by repeated exer- 
cises, each new impression must recall the total of the past. 

In order that we may, by repetition, attain an enduring 
idea of the winding of a river, seen from the same point, each 
new view must reinstate the effect of the previous ; which is 
a species of the attraction of similarity. In such a case, how- 
ever, the similarity amounts to identity, and is never failing 
in its operation. There is no need to mention what can with 
certainty be counted on ; hence this condition of the success of 
contiguous association was tacitly assumed. The cases that 
demand our attention are those where the similarity does not 
amount to identity, and where it may fail to operate: the 
circumstances leading to the failure or the success are then a 
matter of distinct enquiry. 

3. The impediments to the sure revival of the Past, 
through the bond of similarity, are Faintness and Diversity. 

There are cases where a present impression is too Feeble 
to strike into the old-established track of the same impression, 
and to make it alive again ; as when we are unable to iden- 
tify a faint colour, or to recognize a visible object in twilight 
dimness. This forms one department of difficult and doubtful 
re-instatement. The most numerous and interesting cases, 
however, come under the head of Diversity, or likeness accom- 
panied by unlikeness; as when an air is played with new 
variations, or on strange instruments. It will then depend 
upon various circumstances, whether or not we shall be struck 
with the similarity. 

It will appear, as we proceed, that there are the greatest 
individual differences, in respect of the power of re-instating 
a past experience through similarity, under the obstructions 
caused by faintness and diversity. This power would seem 
to follow laws of its own, and not to rise or fall in the propor- 
tion of the Contiguous adhesiveness. As with Contiguity, how- 
ever, so here we find that the facts tally best with the assump- 
tion of a General Power of attraction for Similars, modified by 
the Local endowments of the Senses. Each intellect would 
seem to be gifted with a certain degree of Similarity on the 
whole, or for things generally ; such general power being con- 
sistent with special differences, according to the same local 
peculiarities as we have allowed for in Contiguity. These 
will be made to appear in the illustration of the workings of 



CONDITIONS OF RECOGNIZING FEEBLE IMPRESSIONS. 129 

Similarity, first under the disadvantage of Faintness, and 
secondly, and at greater length, under the obstruction of 
Diversity. 

FEEBLENESS OF IMPRESSION. 

4. Under a certain degree of Faintness, a present im- 
pression will be unable to recall the past, even although 
the resemblance amounts to identity. 

When a present impression is very faint or feeble, it is the 
same as no impression at all. Nevertheless, we are interested 
in considering the instances, of not unfrequent occurrence, 
where a faint impression is recognized by one man and not by 
another. Suppose a taste. In the case of a very feeble brine, 
many persons might consider the water quite fresh ; others 
again would discern the taste of the salt ; that is to say, the 
present impression of salt would recall the previous collective 
impression of the taste of salt, and with that the name and 
characters, or the full knowledge of salt; in other words, 
would identify the substance. 

(1) Let us reflect on the mental peculiarity that may be 
supposed to cause the difference. In the first place, we must 
admit that the natural delicacy of the sense of Taste might 
vary. We know that all the senses are subject to individual 
variations of natural acuteness ; the readiest test of the com- 
parative acuteness being the power of Discrimination, which 
power also implies a delicate sense of Agreement, as well as a 
special force of Retentiveness. In the same way, a delicate 
sense of smell, as in the dog, would show itself in identifying 
very faint odours ; a good ear would make out fainter impres- 
sions of sound; an eye for colourwould recognize a faint shade of 
yellow in what to another eye would seem the absence of colour. 

(2) In the second place, through familiarity, or other 
cause, the previous impression might be more deeply engrained in 
one mind than in another ; as a consequence of which, it would 
start out on a slighter touch of present stimulus. We should 
expect this to happen from the very nature of the case, and 
we know, by abundance of familiar facts, that it does happen. 
The sailor identifies a ship in the offing, and determines its 
build, sooner than a landsman. According as our familiarity 
with spoken language increases, we identify the faintest whis- 
per, or most indistinct utterance. It matters not by what 
means the previous impression has been rendered deep and 
strong, — whether by mere iteration, or by the influence of 
feeling. 

9 



130 AGREEMENT— LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

(3) A third possible source of inequality, in recognizing a 
faint impression, is the habit of attending to the particular 
class of impressions. This may be otherwise described, as 
the acquired delicacy of the sense; by repeated acts of attention 
or concentration of mind, on any one sense, or any one region of 
things, a habitual concentration is determined, augmenting, by 
so much, the natural delicacy of the sense. Hence all profes- 
sional habits of regarding some particular objects, render the 
individuals susceptible to the feeblest impression of any one 
of those objects. 

It need not be made the subject of a separate head, that 
the undistracted condition of the mind at the time, necessarily 
favours the power of making out the identity. A full concen- 
tration of the observing powers is supposed in order to do 
justice to the case ; the concentration may, or may not, be 
aided by motives of special interest^ or by circumstances that 
excite the nervous energy beyond its ordinary pitch. 

These three conditions, differing in origin or source, have 
one common effect, namely, to give greater strength or inten- 
sity to the previous impression. They may be considered as 
exhausting the local and special aids to the restoration of a 
past state by Similarity, under the disadvantage of feebleness 
in the present or actual stimulus. If we assume, in addition, 
a General Power of Similarity, greater in some minds than in 
others, we seem to exhaust the means of accounting for supe- 
rior power of identification in the case of Feebleness. 

For the sake of clearness, let us repeat the four conditions 
in a summary statement. 

I. General Powers of Similarity. This is the deep and 
pervasive aptitude, the intellectual gift, good for all classes of 
impressions. 

II. Special and Local Circumstances. 

(1) Natural delicacy or acuteness of Sense. 

(2) The depth or intensity of the previous impression. 

(3) Acquired delicacy, or habitual attention, to a parti- 
cular class of things. 

All these considerations are no less applicable to the means 
of conquering the obstruction of Diversity ; they must, how- 
ever, for that case, be supplemented by a fourth special cir- 
cumstance, to be presently mentioned. 

SIMILARITY IN DIVERSITY— SENSATIONS. 

5. Movements, Feelings of Movement, and Sensations 



OBSTRUCTIVE OF DIVERSITY. 131 

generally, are revived in idea, by the force of partial simi- 
larity, or likeness in difference. 

When a portrait brings to our mind the original, it is by 
virtue of similarity ; the differences between painted canvass 
and a living man or woman do not blind us to the points of 
likeness. Increase the diversity, however, by dress, attitude, 
and by idealizing the features, and the remaining likeness 
may be insufficient to recall the original ; the diverse circum- 
stances carry the mind away from the points of similarity. 

As regards Diversity, therefore, the distinctive feature is 
the influence of the points of dissimilarity. These, by the 
general law, have a tendency to call up their like ; and hence 
a struggle of opposing influences. A person that we have 
seen only in ordinary costume is painted in military or official 
uniform. Viewing the picture, we may be instigated, by 
similarity, in various directions. As a portrait, the picture 
may suggest other portraits, the reviving stroke of similarity 
operating upon the painter's execution. Or the military 
dress may suggest some soldier by profession. Lastly, the 
portrait may recall its original by the resemblance of the face. 
Three persons looking at the same portrait may thus be 
moved in three different lines of mental resuscitation ; and 
to each one there will be an attraction of likeness in diver- 
sity ; the points of diversity, by their own independent attrac- 
tions, operating as a hindrance to the similarity. Whichever 
point brings on the recall is the likeness ; the others are the 
unlikenesses ; and in their efforts to recall their own simili- 
tudes, they count for so much dead weight against the suc- 
cessful identity. 

It is thus apparent that the circumstance special to the 
obstruction caused by Diversity, is the striving of the separate 
features, each for itself, to strike the recall. Hence, besides 
the three special circumstances contributing to resuscitation, 
under Faintness, we must now add a fourth — namely, (4) a 
low or inferior susceptibility to the points of diversity. 

6. Movements and Feelings of Movement. Before proceeding 
to the Sensations proper, we may advert to the one case of 
movement that furnishes interesting examples of Similarity, 
namely, Articulate movements, or Speech. Any train of 
words presently uttered is liable to recall previous trains 
containing salient identities, although in the midst of differ- 
ence. In using a particular phrase, or in telling an anecdote, 
we are liable to be made aware that we are repeating our- 



132 AGREEMtiKT — LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

selves. We may trace similarities still farther removed from 
identity. In uttering the expression c rights of property/ we 
may be led to remember a famous saying, that ' property has 
its duties as well as its rights.' Coincidences of phraseology 
in authors are thus recalled. Pronouncing Campbell's lines — 

we linger to survey 



The promis'd joys of life's unmeasured way, 
we can hardly fail to recall, if we have previously read, Pope's — 

we tremble to survey 

The growing labours of the lengthened way. 

Verbal similitudes form one powerful link in the resuscitations 
necessary for continuous address or composition. They are 
favoured by all the special circumstances above laid down — 
the verbal or articulate susceptibility, natural and acquired, 
the previous familiarity, and the low susceptibility to the dif- 
ferences between the new and old, which differences may be 
sometimes in the words, but as often in the sense ; the conse- 
quence being that a regard to meaning or sense is often a 
bar to verbal similitudes being struck, especially those, like 
epigrams or puns, that play upon similarities in the form of 
the word, amidst the greatest discordancies of meaning. 

7. Sensations of Organic Life. Among the organic sensa- 
tions, there are many cases of the repetition of a feeling with 
new admixtures, and variety of circumstances, all tending to 
thwart the reviving or identifying operation. The same or- 
ganic depression may have totally different antecedents and 
collaterals. A shock of grief, a glut of pleasure, a fit of over- 
work, an accidental loss of two or three nights' rest, may 
all end in the very same kind of headache, stupor, or feeling 
of discomfort ; but the great difference in the antecedents may 
prevent our identifying the occasions. The derangement 
caused by grief is more likely to recall a previous occasion of 
a similar grief, than to suggest a time of overdone enjoyment; 
the sameness in organic state is, in the case of such a parallel, 
nullified by the repulsion of opposites in the accompanying 
circumstances ; a state of grief does not permit a time of 
pleasure to be recalled and dwelt upon ; the loss of a parent 
at home is not compatible with the remembrance of a long 
night of gaiety abroad. Hence we do not identify the sup- 
posed state of organic depression with all the previous recur- 
rences of the same state ; unless, indeed, a scientific education 
has made us aware of the sameness of the physical effects 
resulting from the most dissimilar causes. 



IDENTIFICATION OF TASTES— CLASSIFICATION. 133 

8. Taste. A taste may be disguised by mixture with 
other tastes. Each of the various ingredients tends to recall 
its like, but under more or less obstruction from the others. 
Three or four salts might be dissolved together, to their 
mutual confusion of taste ; the one actually identified would 
be probably the most familiar. Sugar, common salt, alcohol, 
would be discerned in preference to less common tastes or 
relishes. 

In the different wines, there is a common effect, partly 
of organic sensation, and partly of taste ; and this is identified 
in the midst of much diversity. If a person were to encoun- 
ter at intervals all the different juices of the grape, in all 
countries, — the varieties, or diversities, would obscure the 
sameness ; the common taste of alcohol would hardly emerge 
under the accessories — sweetness, sourness, tartness, and the 
rest ; the mind would, at first, fail to identify a sweet and a 
sour liquid as agreeing in alcoholic pungency. Such an iden- 
tification, however, would sooner or later be effected ; and it 
is important to mark the consequences, as representing one of 
the fruits of the operation of similarity. The discovery of 
this important point of community in substances so widely 
scattered, and so various in their concrete totalities, was what 
Plato called seeing ' the one in the many' — the discovery of a 
class ; it was rising to the unity of nature in the midst of her 
diversity. Such discoveries have a twofold value ; they ease 
the intellectual grasp ; and they enlarge our practical re- 
sources. 

We can carry the identification, in the instance supposed, 
still farther. When the fermentation of malt was discovered, 
new liquids were obtained ; and the distillation of malt and 
various sugary substances added others. The same identify- 
ing stroke, obstructed for a time by differences, would trace a 
community in the wine group, the malt liquors, and the dis- 
tilled liquors ; the range of community is now extended ; 
'the one' is found in a larger ' many.' The class is henceforth 
widened to alcoholic drinks ; the intellect embraces all by a 
single effort ; the needs of practical life, as regards this one 
property, are gratified by a more abundant choice. 

The identification may stretch yet farther. The common 
fact of stimulating the nervous system, and imparting elation 
to the mental tone, may be detected in other substances, as in 
the so-called stimulants — opium, tobacco, tea, hemp, &c. 
There are differences to break through, before arriving at this 
point ; the power of Similarity may need to be aided by 



134 AGREEMENT— LAW OF SIMILARITi'. 



favouring conditions, such as familiarity with the substances 

to be identified ; still, the differences would not long hold out 
against the felt agreement of wine, coffee, tobacco, and opium. 
A separate illustration for Smell is needless. 

9. Touch. The plurality of effects in tangible objects affords 
scope for recognizing agreement in difference. More especi- 
ally does the combination of the tactile with muscular sensi- 
bility allow of great variety of impressions. 

We identify a wooden surface in every variety of form ; 
we identify the spherical shape in variety of surface, and of 
size ; we identify silken, woollen, linen, fabrics by the touch, 
although the texture may be coarse or fine. We identify 
viscid and powdery substances by their peculiar consistency, 
although the specimens may be disguised by unlike accom- 
paniments. 

In this way we generalize and classify effects of touch, and 
the substances that produce them, however different in other 
points. The classified sensations of Touch, as described 
above (see Touch), namely, soft touch, pungent touch, plur- 
ality of points, hardness, resistance, tactile form, &c, all suppose 
this operation of identifying the same effect, in the midst of 
diverse accompaniments. Until we have made some progress in 
identification, we cannot be said to know these various effects ; 
we do not separate them from the concretes where they first 
appear. If hardness were always accompanied with a fixed 
degree of warmth, we should know only the joint sensation, 
which we should recognize as one and not as two. It is by 
identifying the common effect of hardness, under variety of 
temperature, that we possess the idea of hardness by itself. 
Such is an example of the operation of Similarity in the very 
beginnings of our cognitive separation of nature's concretes. 

10. Searing. The still greater complexity of effects of 
Sound affords ample scope for seeing the like in the unlike. 
Thus, the pitch of a note may be overlaid by varying inten- 
sity, by difference of voice or instrument, and so on. In such 
a case, only the good ear will recognize it : the natural and 
acquired delicacy of the sense of pitch is tested by identifying 
a note heard amidst distracting accompaniments. 

The articulate property of sound may be disguised beyond 
the power of ordinary identification. When a person talks 
with indistinct utterance, or with an unaccustomed voice, 
pronunciation and accent, the points of difference overpower 
the articulate agreement ; failing to identify the articulate 
characters, we fail to understand the speaker. This is a 



IDENTIFICATION IN MUSIC AND IN LANGUAGE. 135 

testing case for the local aids to similarity, namely, the good 
articulate ear, and the indifference or low sensibility to 
effects of cadence, which are felt by the ear for elocution or 
oratory. A provincial brogue, unfamiliar to us, always 
renders a speaker more or less unintelligible ; in other words, 
the diversity of accent drowns the community of articula- 
tion. We might have, as a converse instance, the ear for 
cadence so acute as to identify a very disguised provincialism 
of accent. 

In listening to a continuous musical piece or air, we 
identify the piece, or we do not. A bad ear, and little pre- 
vious familiarity, would account for the failure ; the obstruc- 
tion being increased by a strong susceptibility for instrumental 
and other particularities apart from the character of the piece. 
Also, we may identify the key, although the piece be new ; 
we may identify the style of the composer ; or we may trace a 
certain ethical character — the gay, the solemn, the pathetic, 
the melancholy. 

Continuous spoken address is diversified by cadence, as 
already remarked, and by all the arts of elocution, as well as 
by the visible accompaniments of gesture. The hearer may 
incline, by preference, to one class of effects, being compara- 
tively insensitive to the others ; and the course of the identifi- 
cation will alter accordingly. Our easy understanding of 
every-day speech is owing to the uniformity of all the accom- 
paniments of voice, pronunciation, cadence, and gesticulation ; 
if these accompaDiments are altered, as when we listen to 
strangers, or foreigners, the diversity clouds the perception of 
the articulate sameness. 

Our memory for language spoken is a mixture of articu- 
late and auditory recollections ; the ear counting for more 
than the voice. The occasions for tracing similarity in diver- 
sity, among verbal trains, are innumerable. When another 
person is speaking, we are affected through the ear, and are 
reminded of previously heard sayings, more or less similar 
according to the circumstances. We detect resembling phrases, 
and styles, in different speakers ; we are reminded of past 
occasions when the same forms were used by the same or by 
other persons. We generalize mannerisms and peculiarities 
in each person that we are accustomed to listen to, and assign 
characteristics in accordance therewith. 

The great diversifying accompaniment in language is the 
meaning or subject matter. A mind intently regarding the 
sense will be less apt to dwell upon the phraseology ; the 



136 AGREEMENT— LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

suggestiveness will be for meaning and not for words. And, 
conversely, a small regard to meaning, and an acute apprecia- 
tion of words, will make the mind keenly alive to similarities 
of pkrase in spite of disparity of sense. 

11. Sight. We identify colours under difference of shade ; 
which leads to the classifying of colours, as blues, yellows, 
reds, &c. When a colour is intermediate, or on the margin 
between two principal colours, we may identify it with either 
the one or other, according to the circumstance^. We gene- 
ralize the peculiar effect of lustre, as seen in many different 
situations, — in the pebbly brook, the coating of varnish, the 
brilliant surface of jet black, the polished marble, the human 
eye. It requires a higher stretch of Similarity to identify with 
those the sparkle of solar reflection from broken surfaces. 

Combinations of Colour with visible Form and Size, are 
identified now on one feature, now on another. We identify 
a common colour, or shade of colour, through all changes of 
form and magnitude ; such identification being our notion, or 
idea, of that colour. A deep susceptibility to colour will make 
us perceive delicate agreements, as well as differences, and 
enlarge our fund of these distinct notions of shades of colour. 
It is by consciousness of agreement, that we recognize a colour 
according to its precise shade, and not merely according to its 
generic class — red, blue, orange, &c. 

To identify visible forms in the midst of differences of 
colour and dimensions, is to classify and generalize the forms of 
natural bodies. We discern a common effect in all the bodies 
called round, or oval, or triangular. We identify less sym- 
metrical forms that recur in nature and in art — the egg- shape, 
heart-shape, pear-shape, &c. The resemblances are generally 
obvious ; sometimes they are obscure, as in many of the 
descriptive comparisons in Botany and in Anatomy. Deep 
identities of form would be soonest arrived at by minds little 
sensitive to colours. 

Under arbitrary and symbolical forms, we have the case 
of deciphering handwriting. The perception of alphabetical 
identity is sometimes difficult; and the difficulty is aggravated 
if there be great symmetry or proportion in other respects. 
An elegant indistinct hand is often the most illegible of any. 
The best decipherer would be a person susceptible to the 
alphabetic distinctions, and wholly unsusceptible to regularity 
and symmetry. 

Visible forms, linked together, enter into our recollections 
of Language. We may trace similarities of phrase through 



VISIBLE FORMS AND VISIBLE MOVEMENTS. 137 

the eye, as well as through the ear. The suggestive force of 
a sentence uttered is greatly increased by writing it down and 
exhibiting it to the eye. 

So, visible forms artistically pleasing are identified on that 
ground, by the .artist, although there should not be either 
mathematical symmetry or literal agreement. The strong 
sense of the mathematical, the regular, or the literal, might 
be a hindrance to artistic invention generally. 

A scene of nature is to the eye a mixed and complicated 
effect, suggesting to different minds different comparisons, 
according to susceptibility and to previous experience. The 
same is true of any varied spectacle, as a pageant or procession. 
We have only to ring the changes on the several circum- 
stances, positive and negative, that favour a particular recall, to 
exhaust all the varieties of individual characters. The mental 
preference for form, or for colour, for symmetrical forms, for 
artistic effects, will each operate characteristically upon the 
course of the identification. 

Under Sight, finally, we may mention visible movements. 
Notwithstanding diversity of accompanying circumstances, 
we trace identity, and form classes, among rectilineal move- 
ments, circular movements, elliptical movements, pendulums, 
waves, waterfalls, and so on. The more complex movements 
of animals are reduced to identical modes — the walk, gallop, 
trot, shamble, of quadrupeds ; also the peculiar flight of dif- 
ferent species of birds. The gait of human beings is a part 
of their character, and is identified in the midst of other dif- 
ferences. Once more, a visible movement is identified with a 
resembling form in still life, as the rainbow with a projectile ; 
a failing body with a crushing weight. 

12. Effects common to the Senses generally. Although there 
is a generic and fundamental difference of feeling between one 
sense and another, as between touch and smell, hearing and 
sight, yet we identify many common effects. Thus the charac- 
teristic called ' pungency ' applies to tastes and to smells alike, 
and is not inappropriate when describing Touch, Hearing, or 
Sight. In all the senses, we identify the pleasing and the 
painful, and the different modes of acute and massive. The 
feeling of warmth is identified with effects of vision ; mention 
is made of warm colours. By a farther stretch, we speak of 
warm emotions, a cold nature, a bitter repentance, a sweet 
disposition. These last, however, pass into the region of 
metaphor and poetry, where resemblances are purposely 
multiplied on slight pretexts. 



138 AGREEMENT— LAW OF SIMILARITY. 



CONTIGUOUS AGGREGATES — CONJUNCTIONS. 

13. First, Objects affecting a Plurality of Senses. 

Two things may agree to the touch, and differ to the 
sight ; or agree to the sight, and differ to the taste or smell. 
Nevertheless, the difference need not necessarily blind us to 
the similarities. We identify the heavy metals on the point 
of weight, although they are unlike in appearance ; we iden- 
tify the metallic lustre, amid variety of colour, weight, and 
other differences, including in one case the difference of liquid 
and solid. Still, if some one feature of diversity were very 
alluring, as the glitter of the diamond, we should not proceed 
to identify the crystalline form, or the specific gravity, until 
our admiration of the more startling quality were exhausted. 

14. Secondly, Aggregates of associated properties and 

uses. 

- 

No one object in nature discloses the whole of its charac- 
teristics as it appears in stillness and isolation. A flint is not 
fully known, until we manipulate it, for hardness, brittleness, 
and the rest. Our knowledge of each object is therefore a 
compound of its permanent aspects, and of its possible aspects, 
under certain operations. A hammer is not completely known 
till it is seen in action ; a weather-cock must be observed 
turning with the wind. 

In such cases, likeness may be accompanied with great 
diversity. Things widely different in their mere sensuous 
appearance may be identical in their uses ; and things widely 
different in their uses may be identical in their appearance. 
Take the first case — diversity in appearance, with identity in 
use. A rope is in appearance very unlike two bevelled tooth 
wheels working into one another, but it may serve the same 
end of communicating movement from one revolving axle to 
another. 

A still more remarkable instance of diversity of appear- 
ance, in company with identity of use, is seen in the Prime 
Movers. It is easy to identify human force with animal 
force ; a difference so small could be got over by the most 
ordinary intellect in search of a mechanical power. A water- 
fall is a much less obvious comparison ; it would demand a 
considerable stretch of identifying faculty concentrating itself 
on the point of mechanical force. Still farther removed in 
sensuous aspects is the power of the wind. It is not recorded 



IDENTITY OF PRIME MOVERS. 



139 



under what circumstances the human mind extended its grasp 
to these less apparent sources of motive power ; but we 
happen to be fully acquainted with the discovery of the 
greatest of them all ; and can produce it as a highly illustra- 
tive example of the workings of Similarity in Diversity. To 
the common eye, steam, or vapour, suggested nothing but 
fleecy tenuity ; it seemed the farthest remove from anything 
that could exert moving power. Doubtless, the forcing up of 
the lid of a boiling kettle was a familiar fact, but this fact did 
not suggest as a parallel the other sources of moving power ; 
the likeness was shrouded by too many circumstances of 
unlikeness. The special conditions of such an identification, 
in the mind of Watt, were his previous studies of mechanical 
properties, the habit of directing his mind to these on all 
occasions, and the negative peculiarity of indifference to mere 
sensuous aspects as such. To these, we must probably add 
the general power of Similarity in an unusual degree ; an 
assumption necessary when we consider the number of suc- 
cessful fetches made by him, as compared with other men of 
like education, pursuits, and habits. 

In the class of Mineral bodies, we have the concurrence of 
many attributes in each individual, some sensible and per- 
manent, others experimental and occasional. If we take the 
group of metals, we find a certain number easily identified; 
the differences, although considerable, do not overpower the 
marked sameness in appearance and in specific gravity. But 
when Sir Humphrey Davy suggested that metals were locked 
up in soda, potash, and lime, the identification was opposed 
by everything in the sensible appearance ; ifc proceeded upon 
associated properties, and remote relationships, appreciated 
only by the intellect. An identity had already been struck, 
and a class formed, among the bodies termed salts ; it was 
also known that many of these are composed of an acid and 
the oxide of a metal ; such are sulphate of oxide of iron, 
nitrate of oxide of silver ; others consist of an acid and an 
alkali, as sulphate of soda, nitrate of potash. Thus, the neu- 
tral salts, as a whole, being so far analogous as to suggest a like 
constitution, while an oxide of a metal and an alkali served 
an identical function in neutralizing the acid, the thought 
came across the mind of Davy, that the alkalies are oxides of 
metals ; a flash of insight that he had the skill and good for- 
tune to verify. This was hunting out nature's similarities in 
the deepest thickets of concealment. 

The progress of science in the Vegetable world would 



140 AGREEMENT — LAW OF SIMILARITY, 

reveal the operation of the principle before us, in striking out 
deep identities in superficial diversities. In the first classifi- 
cations of plants, the more obvious feature of size took hold 
of the attention ; the Trees of the Forest, were marked off 
from the Shrubs, and the Flowers. The great step made by 
Linnaeus, consisted in tracing identity in less conspicuous 
parts of the plant, the organs of fructification ; under which the 
largest trees and the smallest shrubs were brought together. 

Botany presents other examples. Thus, Goethe saw in 
the flower the form of the entire plant ; the circular arrange- 
ment of the petals of the corolla was paralleled by the cork- 
screw arrangement of the leaves round the stem. So, Oken, 
in the leaf, identified the plant ; the branchings of the veins 
of a leaf are, in fact, a miniature of the entire vegetable, with 
its parent stem, branches and ramifications. 

In the Animal Kingdom, we might quote many deep 
fetches of Similarity. The first superficial classification of 
animals according to their element, — animals of the land, the 
water, and the air, has since been traversed by other classifi- 
cations founded on deep community of structure ; the bat has 
been detached from birds, and the seal, whale, and porpoise 
from fishes. More pointed still, as illustrating the power of 
a few select minds to detect similarities unapparent to the 
multitude, is the discovery of the deep identities in the 
vertebrate skeleton, termed homologies. The first suggestion 
of them is attributed to Oken, a man remarkable for this 
species of intellectual penetration. Walking one day in a 
forest, he came on the blanched skull of a deer. He took it 
up, and while examining the anatomical arrangements, there 
flashed upon him the identity between it and the back bone ; 
the skull, he said, was four vertebras distorted by the expanded 
cerebral mass and the development of the face. It is strange 
that this similarity should not have been first struck out in 
the case of the fishes, where the deviation of the head from 
the spine is smallest. To see it in the quadruped, was to 
work at a far greater disadvantage. But Oken was a man, 
not merely gifted with large powers of analogical discovery, 
or, as one should say, general Power of Similarity; he was, 
by the bent of his mind, an analogy-hunter ; he studiously set 
himself to look at things in diverse aspects, so as to detect 
new analogies. No man ever suggested so many identities 
of that peculiar class ; although only .a small number, perhaps 
not above half a dozen, have been found to hold upon farther 
examination. 



CYCLE. — EVOLUTION. — CAUSATION. 141 

The homologies of the vetebrate series of animals, whose 
discovery and exposition enter into Comparative Anatomy, 
consist in showing the deep correspondence of parts super- 
ficially nnlike ; the upper arm of man, the fore leg of the 
quadruped, the wing of the bird, the anterior fin of the fish. 

SUCCESSIONS. 

15. The natural successions have been already con- 
sidered under Cycle, Evolution, and Cause and Effect. 
In all of them, there is scope for Identification in the 
midst of difference. 

Cycle. The chief natural phenomena of cycle, the day 
and the year, are too obviously alike not to be identified ; the 
differences are insignificant as compared with the agreements. 
In the rising and setting of the stars, there is a point of simi- 
larity that may have been long unobserved, the constancy of 
angle in the same latitude, the angle being the co-latitude of 
the place. Besides being an unobvious fact, there are two 
disguising unlikenesses in the rising and setting of the stars 
in the same place ; namely, the height reached by them, and 
the change of the time of rising throughout the year. The 
cycles of the planets would be easy to trace in the superior 
planets, not so in Mercury and Venus. 

The cycles of human affairs are sometimes apparent, 
but often obscure. Writers on the Philosophy of His- 
tory have remarked a sort of vibratory tendency in human 
societies, or a transition between two extremes, as from 
asceticism to licence, from severity of taste to laxity, from con- 
servation to innovation. 

Evolution. The successions of Evolution are typified, 
and principally constituted, by the growth of living beings. 
Each plant and animal, in the course of its existence, pre- 
sents a series of phases, and, as respects these, we discover a 
similarity in different individuals and species. The depart- 
ment, called Comparative Embryology, traces identities in 
the midst of wide diversities. Again, the mental evolution of 
human beings is a subject of interesting comparison. 

Cause and Effect. Causation is the name for the total pro- 
ductive forces of the world, and, as these are comparatively 
few in number, but wide in their distribution, and often dis- 
guised in their operation, the ingenuity of man has long been 
exercised in detecting the hidden similarities. An example 
will show the nature of the difficulties and the means of con- 
quering them. The burning of coal, and the rusting of iron, 



142 AGREEMENT — LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

show to the eye nothing in common except the fact of change. 
No mere force of Similarity, however aided by the ordinary 
favouring conditions, positive and negative, could have de- 
tected the deep community of these two phenomena. Other 
phenomena had to be interposed, having relations to both, in 
order to disclose the likeness. The experiments of Priestley 
upon the red cxide were the intermediate link. Mercury, 
when burned, becomes heavier, being converted into a red 
powder, by taking up material from the air, which can be 
again driven off by heat, so as to reproduce the metallic sub- 
stance. Thus, while the act of combustion of the mercury has 
a strict resemblance to the burning of coal, the resulting 
change on the substance could suggest the rusting of iron, the 
only difference being the time occupied. By such intermediate 
comparisons, the general law of oxidation has been gradually 
traced through all its entanglements. 

If not the greatest known stretch, of identifying genius, 
the example most illustrious from its circumstances was the 
discovery of universal gravitation. Here the appearances 
were, in the highest degree, unfavourable to identification. 
Who could see anything in common between the grand and 
silent march, of the moon and the planets round the heavens, 
and the fall of unsupported bodies to the ground ? A pre- 
paratory process was necessary on both, sides. Newton, by 
studying the planetary motions as a case of the composition 
of forces, resolved them each into two; a tendency in a straight 
line through space, and a tendency to the sun as a centre. He 
thus had clearly before him the fact, that there was an attraction 
of the planets to the sun, and of the moon to the earth. This 
was the preparation on one side. On the other side, he medi- 
tated on the various phenomena of falling bodies, and, putting 
away as irrelevant the accidental circumstances and interests 
that engross the common mind, he saw in these bodies a 
common tendency of the nature of attraction to the earth's 
surface, or rather the earth's centre. Viewed in this light, 
the phenomenon was closely assimilated to the great effect 
of Solar attraction, which he had previously isolated ; and we 
are not to be surprised that, in some happy moment, the two 
flashed together in his mind. Even after the preparatory 
shapings on both sides, the stroke of identification was a re- 
markable fetch of similarity ; the attendant disparities were 
still great and imposing; and we must suppose that the 
mind of Newton was distinguished no less by the negative 
condition of inattention to the vulgar and sensuous aspects, 



ABSTRACTION. — INDUCTION, 143 

than by absorption in the purely dynamical aspect, of the 
phenomena. 

REASONING^ AND SCIENCE IN GENERAL. 

16. The Generalizing power of the mind, already seen 
to be a mode of Similarity, culminates in Science, and is 
designated under the names Abstraction and Seasoning. 

The example just quoted, and others previously given, 
exhibit Similarity at work in scientific discovery. Still, it is 
desirable to give a more complete view of the relations of 
science to the identifying faculty. The chief scientific pro- 
cesses are these four — Observation, Definition, Induction, 
Deduction ; the first is the source of the individual facts, and 
depends on the senses ; the three last relate to the generalities, 
and are all dependent on the intellectual force of Similarity. 

I. Classification, Abstraction, Generalization of Notions or 
Concepts, General Names, Definition. These designations all 
refer to the one operation of identifying a number of things 
on some point, or property, which property is finally em- 
bodied in language by the process called Definition. The 
start is given by an identifying operation, a perception of 
likeness or community in many things otherwise diverse. 
In watching the heavenly bodies, the early astronomers dis- 
covered a few that moved steadily through the fixed stars, 
and made the circle of the heavens in longer or shorter 
periods. The bodies identified and brought together on 
this common ground, made a class, as distinguished from 
a mere confused aggregate. The mind, reflecting on the 
things so classified, attends to their similarity, and en- 
deavours to leave out of view the points of dissimilarity ; 
this is the long-disputed process of abstraction ; the common 
attribute or attributes is called the abstract idea, the notion, 
or the concept. When a name is applied to the things com- 
pared, because of their agreement or community, it is a 
general name, as ' planet/ And when we are further desirous 
of settling, by the help of language, the precise nature and 
limits of the common attribute, the result is a definition. A 
planet would now be defined as ' a body circulating around 
the sun as its centre, in an orbit nearly circular.' (On 
Abstraction, see Chap, v.) 

II. Conjoined properties generalized, General Affirmations, 
Propositions, Judgments, Laws of Nature, Induction. In Ab- 
straction, a single isolated property, or a collection of proper- 



144 AGREEMENT — LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

ties treated as a unity, is identified and generalized ; under 
Induction, a conjunction, union, or concurrence of two distinct 
properties is identified. A proposition contains two notions 
"bound together by a copula. 'Heat' is the name of one 
general property or notion; 'expansion' is the name of a 
second notion ; the proposition ' heat expands bodies,' is a pro- 
position uniting the two properties in an inductive generality, 
or a law of nature. Here, too, the prime requisite is the 
identifying stroke of Similarity. One present instance of the 
concurrence of heat with increase of bulk, may recall by simi- 
larity other instances; the mind, awakened by the flash of 
identity, takes note of the concurrence, looks out for other 
cases in point, and ventures (rightly or wrongly) to affirm a 
general law of nature, connecting the two properties. 

All the difficulties and the facilities connected with the 
working of Similarity may be found attending these inductive 
generalizations. There is one noticeable circumstance special 
to the case. That two things or two properties affect us to- 
gether, excites no attention at first ; we are so familiar with 
such nnions that we take little note of the fact. It is, how- 
ever, a point of some importance to know whether two things, 
occurring together, do so merely by accident, or by virtue of 
some fixed attachment keeping them always together ; for, in 
the first case, the coincidence is of no moment, while in the last 
case, it is something that we may count on and anticipate in 
the future. Now, the real problem of inductive generalization 
consists in eliminating the regular and constant concurrences 
from the casual and inconstant. It is the identifying stroke 
of Similarity that is the means of rousing us to the constant 
concurrences ; these repeat themselves while other things 
come and go, and the repetition is the prompting to suspect 
an alliance, and not merely a coincidence. 

The favouring conditions of mind for scientific induction 
are the conditions, positive and negative, of the scientific intel- 
lect on the whole. General Power of Similarity being supposed, 
the special circumstances are, susceptibility to symbols and 
forms ; the previous familiarity with the subject matter ; the 
scientific interest ; and the absence of the purely sensuous and 
concrete regards. Such are unquestionably the intellectual 
features of the greatest scientific geniuses, the men whose lives 
are a series of discoveries. 

Some conjunctions are obvious ; as light and heat with the 
sun's rays. Others are less obvious, but yet discernible, with- 
out any artificial medium ; such are the sign3 of weather, 



DEDUCTION. 145 

seasons and crops, the pointing of the loadstone to the north, 
many of the canses of agreeable and disagreeable sensation 
and of good and ill health, the influences of national prosperity. 
A third class demand artificial media and aids, as Kepler's 
laws, and the law of refraction of light, which could not have 
been discovered without the intervention of numerical and 
geometrical relations. 

III. Deduction, Deductive Inference, Ratiocination, Appli- 
cation or 'Extension of Inductions, Syllogism. When an Induc- 
tive generality has been established, the application of it to 
new cases is called Deduction. Kepler's laws were framed 
upon the six planets ; they have been deductively applied to 
all that have since been discovered. The law of gravity was 
deductively applied to explain the tides. 

Deduction also is a process of identification, by the force 
of Similarity. The new case must resemble the old, otherwise 
there can be no legitimate application of the law. Newton, 
by an inductive identification, detected, among transparent 
bodies, a conjunction between combustibility and high refract- 
ing power ; the oils and resins bend light much more than 
water or glass. He then, by a farther stroke of identification, 
bethought himself of the diamond, the most refracting of all 
known substances ; the deductive application of the law 
would lead to the inference that it was composed of some 
highly combustible element ; which afterwards was found to 
be the case. 

The Deductive process appears under two aspects ; a prin- 
ciple may be given, and its application to facts sought for ; or 
a fact may be given, and its principle sought for. In both, 
the discovery is made by the force of Similarity. When the 
law of definite proportions was first promulgated, an un- 
bounded range of applications lay before the chemist ; which 
was the carrying out of the principle deductively. 

Reasoning by Analogy. This is a mode of reasoning that 
bears upon its name the process of Similarity ; the fact, how- 
ever, being that in it the similarity is imperfect, and the con- 
clusion so much the less cogent. When we examine a sample 
of wheat, the production of the same soil, and infer that the 
rest will correspond to the sample, we make a rigid induc- 
tion ; there being an identity of nature in the material or 
kind. But when we reason from wheat to the other cereals, 
the similarity is accompanied with diversities, and the rea- 
soning is then precarious and only probable ; such is reasoning 
by Analogy. Thus, there is an analogy, not an identity, be- 

io 



146 AGREEMENT— LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

tween waves of water and waves of air as in sound ; between 
electricity and the nerve force ; between the functions, bodily 
and mental, of men and of the inferior animals ; between the 
family and the state ; between the growth of a living being 
and the growth of a nation. These analogies are struck out 
by the intellectual power of Similarity ; they are useful when 
no closer parallelism can be drawn. 

17. The scientific processes, named Induction and 
Deduction, correspond to what is called the reason, or 
the Reasoning faculty of the mind. 

The name Reason is used in a narrow sense, corresponding 
to Deduction, and also in a wider sense, comprising both De- 
duction and Induction. To express the scientific faculty in its 
fulness, the process called Abstraction would have to be taken 
along with Reason in the wider sense. What is variously 
termed by Hamilton the Elaborative or Discursive Faculty, 
Comparison, the Faculty of Relations, Thought (in a peculiar 
narrow sense), includes the aggregate of processes now de- 
scribed as entering into the operations of science. It has 
just been seen, that the working of Similarity renders an 
adequate account of the principal feature in all these opera- 
tions, although, to complete the explanation, there still re- 
mains a circumstance to be brought forward under the head 
of the Constructive operations of the Intellect. 

BUSINESS AND PRACTICE. 

18. Of Practical discoveries, some are due to observa- 
tion and trial ; others are the extension or application of 
known devices, through the perception of Similarity. 

The first discovery of a lever, a pump, or a boat, could 
be made only by a stumbling and tentative method ; acci- 
dent alone could disclose the advantage of these imple- 
ments. But the extension, to new cases, of machinery once 
discovered, proceeds on the identifying stroke of Similarity, 
sometimes in the midst of great dissimilarity. Among early 
nations, we find few indications of discoveries by this last 
method ; the mechanical knowledge of the Egyptians, or of the 
Chinese, would seem to be all of tentative or experimental 
origin. In modern invention, however, we can trace the 
workings of great intellectual force of Similarity. It is emi- 
nent in the career of Watt. His ' governor balls' is a wonder- 
ful stroke of intellectual grasp ; it was not a mechanical tenta- 



TRANSFER OF PRACTICAL DEVICES. 147 

tive ; it was not even the extension of a device already in 
existence. The similarity lay deeper ; he wanted to institute 
a connexion between the increase or diminution of a rapid 
rotatory movement and the opening and shutting of a valve ; 
and he was so fortunate as to recall the situation of bodies 
flying off by centrifugal force, where the distance from the 
centre varies slightly according to the change of speed. No 
other apposite parallel has ever been suggested for the same 
situation ; and the device once thought of has been carried 
out into many different applications. His suggestion of the 
lobster-jointed pipe, for conveying water across the bottom of 
the Clyde, was another pure fetch of similarity. 

The device of carving a mould and impressing it upon 
any number of separate things, goes back to a high antiquity ; 
as we see in coins. One of its many extensions is the art of 
Printing. 

The common water pump, discovered by experiment, was 
transmuted into the air pump. The water-wheel is the proto- 
type of the ship's paddle. The screw-propeller is an exten- 
sion of the vanes of the windmill. 

In the administration and the forms of business, something 
must first be devised by trials, or suggested by accident ; the 
further extension is a purely intellectual process. The or- 
ganization of masses of men to act together began, doubtless, 
in the necessities of war ; repeated trials showed that there 
must be a chief or superior head, with subordinate grades of 
command. The machinery once suggested is extended to all 
other organizations of large bodies, as for public works, 
manufactures, &c. 

The arts of book-keeping, including the employment of 
printed forms and schedules, have been gradually made to 
permeate all departments of business. 

The art of Persuasion is greatly dependent on the attrac- 
tive force of Similarity. The orator has to make out an iden- 
tity between his end and the views, opinions, and motive 
forces of his hearers ; and such identity may be very much 
clogged and disguised. If he has to address an assembly of 
men of wealth, he must reconcile his aims with the rights and 
interests of property. Now, all reconciliation proceeds on the 
perception of points of agreement, real or supposed ; hence a 
mind fertile in discoveries of identification is so far fitted for 
the task of persuasion. Burke's speeches abound in these 
strokes of discernment. 



148 AGREEMENT— LAW OF SIMILARITY 



ILLUSTRATIVE COMPARISONS AND LITERARY ART. 

19. A large department of invention, more especially 
in Literature 3 consists in striking out similitudes, among 
things different in kind, yet serving to illustrate each 
other. 

Of the Figures of Speech, one extensive class is denomi- 
nated Figures of Similarity, including the Simile, Metaphor, 
Personification, Allegory, &c. These are called Figures, be- 
cause they proceed upon some likeness of form in difference 
of subject. When we compare the act of eating in a man and 
in a dog, the comparison is real, literal, a comparison in kind ; 
when we talk of digesting and ruminating knowledge, the 
comparison is illustrative or figurative. Since the origin of lite- 
rature, many thousands of such comparisons have been struck 
out ; every great literary genius has contributed to the stock ; 
the profusion of Shakespeare being probably unmatched. 

These illustrative comparisons are of two kinds, depending, 
for their invention, on different mental conditions. Of the first 
kind are those that render an obscure subject clearer, as when 
we compare the heart to a force pump, the lungs to a bellows, 
and business routine to a beaten track. The expositor of 
difficult subjects and doctrines avails himself, as far as his in- 
tellectual reach will go, of such illustrative similitudes. They 
are numerous in Plato. Among the moderns, Bacon is con- 
spicuous for both the number and felicity of his illustrations. 
Some have become household words. His ' Essay on Delays' 
may be referred to, as exemplifying his profuse employment of 
similes. « 

The invention of such similes is a pure intellectual effort 
of Similarity. They suppose previous acquaintance with the 
regions whence they are drawn, an acquaintance terminating 
in deep or vivid impressions, enhanced by a sensibility for 
the material of them. 

The other class comprehends those serving for ornament, 
or emotional effect ; as when one man is extolled as god- like, 
another compared to the brutes. Here the likeness involves 
a common emotion, with or without intellectual similitude. 
For their invention, a deep emotional susceptibility must be 
combined with the force of intellect. He that would command 
similitudes illustrative of a pathetic situation, must have often 
been pathetically moved in actually contemplating the original 
objects of comparison. 



LITERARY GENIUS. 149 

An unlearned genius like Bunyan knows the commoner 
appearances of nature, the experience of the mind open to 
every one, the more familiar aspects of society and manners, 
and the compass of religious doctrine. Out of these materials, 
Bunyan drew his similes and his allegories ; being favoured 
by a special susceptibility to the concrete world of sense, by 
strong emotions superadding an element of interest to a 
greater or less number of objects, and, we must suppose also, 
by large general power of Similarity. 

Shakespeare, without being learned, had more reading than 
Bunyan. Still his resources were to a great degree personal 
observation, and common things. His glances around him 
impressed the things on his mind with a force out of all propor- 
tion to the attention that he could have given them. Natural 
scenery, natural objects, human character, his own mind, 
society and its usages, were absorbed by him, as material for 
his identifying and constructive faculty. He had a moderate 
knowledge of books, which extended his sphere of allusion to 
foreign scenes, and to the incidents and personalities of the 
ancient world ; and his study of the subject of one play gave 
him a stock of allusive references to be employed incidentally 
in the others. 

Bacon had an eye for the concrete world about him, but 
his mental attention was divided between this and book study 
in philosophy, scholarship, politics, and law. His sphere of 
similitudes has a corresponding compass. 

Milton also had the concrete eye for the real world, a 
poet's interest in nature, and a vein of emotion that gave spe- 
cial impressiveness to whatever was large, vast, unbounded, 
mysterious in its immensity. He likewise had very great 
stores of reading, and had absorbed the scenes and pictures of 
remote countries and times. 

Literary comparisons being expressed in language, are 
very much subject to verbal conditions. The associations 
with words concur to bring some forward, and to keep others 
back. A great poet needs verbal profusion, as well as pic- 
torial suggestiveness. 

THE FINE ARTS IN GENERAL. 

20. The intellectual power of tracing similarity in 
diversity is most conspicuous in Poetry and the Literary 
Art. It may enter, in some degree, into Painting, Sculp- 
ture, Architecture, and Design. But 5 as regards the 



150 AGREEMENT — LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

effusive arts — Music, Elocution, Stage-display, Dancing, 
and tlie graces of Demeanour — the mental endowment even 
of the greatest genius has but little that is purely intel- 
lectual; the elements are — Sensibility, and the compass 
and power of the Organs engaged. 

What has been said under the foregoing head is sufficient 
for the Poetical Art. In Painting, it is couceivable and likely 
that the resources of the artist should be aided by a far-reach- 
ing power of Similarity ; in recalling scenes to select from, and 
combine, he draws upon his past experience, brought up by 
the force of likeness in unlikeness ; although his final appro- 
priation must be governed entirely by his sense of artistic 
effect. An artist may have great intellectual forces, with only 
a moderate sensibility to the refinements of composition ; in 
other words, great profusion and little taste. It would be 
easy to produce literary artists of this character ; and per- 
haps we may regard Michael Angelo, as a parallel in 
Painting. 

In the other class of Fine Arts, typified by Music, it seems 
unsuitable to appeal to an unusual force of the identifying 
faculty. The fine Sensibility is the great requisite ; second to 
which is the endowment of the Active Organ concerned. A 
great musician depends principally on delicate ear for pitch ; 
an elocutionist on the ear for cadence ; an actor superadds the 
eye for gesture and pictorial elements. 

SIMILARITY IN ACQUISITION AND MEMORY. 

21. To whatever extent new acquisitions are the repeti- 
tion of old, there is an intellectual saving. Now, it being 
necessary that the old should be recovered to the view, any 
superiority in the identifying faculty will be apparent in 
diminishing the labour of acquirement. 

It is of some importance to remark, that our more 
Complicated acquisitions are a kind of patchwork. The 
memory of a scene in nature is the tacking together of pre- 
vious memories. If a pleader, after once reading a brief, can 
remember its contents, the reason is that only a small part is 
new. In geometry, one demonstration is so like another, 
that after a certain familiarity with the matter of demonstra- 
tions, the fresh cost to the memory, in each, is very small. _ 

It is obvious, then, that by a greater reach of the identify- 
iog power, the means and resources of this piecing operation 



VALUE OF METHOD IN MEMORY. 151 

may be extended. The scientific man whose penetrating 
glance can recognize the smallest identity between something 
fresh and something already known, recovers that portion of 
the past for present use ; while he that is unable to bring 
about the recovery, must learn the whole anew. This is a 
genuine and often realized distinction between one intellect 
and another. A mind like Bacon's, studying Law, would 
make tenfold strides, as compared with one of average endow- 
ment. 

The value of method, order, uniformity of plan, in aiding 
memory, is wholly explicable on the principle of making one 
acquisition serve for a great many occasions. When things are 
always put in the same places, we have only to form one local 
tie in our memory of each ; whereas, if tools and utensils are 
put away at random, there must be either a distinct local ad- 
hesion, or the trouble of a search as often as any one is used. 



CHAPTEE III. 
COMPOUND ASSOCIATION. 

1. Associations, separately too weak, may, conjointly, 
be strong enough to revive a past experience. 

Hitherto we have assumed the links of association to be 
single or individual ; we must now consider the very frequent 
case of the union of several bonds of contiguity or similarity. 
The facts brought up in the course of the illustration will 
show that, here as elsewhere, union is strength. 

The combinations may be of Contiguity solely, or of 
mixed Contiguity and Similarity. Besides these purely intel- 
lectual bonds, an Emotion may contribute to the recall ; and 
we have farther to ascertain what influence may be exercised 
by the will or Volition. 

The general law may be stated thus : — 

Past actions, sensations, thoughts, or emotions, are re- 
called more easily, when associated either through 
contiguity or similarity, with more than one present 
object or impression. 



152 COMPOUND ASSOCIATION. 



COMPOSITION OF CONTIGUITIES. 

2. In the Composition of Contiguities, we may dis- 
tinguish Conjunctions and Successions. 

Conjunctions. Most things affect the mind by a plurality 
of impressions. So simple an object as a star, is an aggregate 
of light, visible magnitude, and visible form ; a diamond is a 
greater aggregate ; a human being is more complicated still. 
A link of association with any one of the component parts of 
these aggregates may be strong enough to recall the whole ; 
this would be single-handed contiguity. Or, a plurality of 
links, individually unequal to the recall, might compass it by 
their united force. A diamond might be suggested to the 
mind, partly by some circumstance that recalled its brilliancy, 
partly by an alliance with its hardness. 

It is, however, when we pass beyond isolated objects to 
the aggregates made up by the various relationships of things, 
that we find the greatest scope for plurality of associations ; 
as in the connexions with locality, with persons, with uses, 
and with properties. 

Local associations play a great part in memory, both in 
single sufficiency, and in partnership with others* All things, 
with a fixed or usual locality, become connected in the mind 
with that locality. But a great many of these bonds are in- 
dividually too feeble ; we cannot, by thinking of the interior 
of a house, recall the whole of its furniture and contents. 
Nevertheless, local connexions may eke out other ties also 
insufficient of themselves. We may not be able to remem- 
ber a mineral specimen by its being a certain ore of iron ; but 
some local association in a museum or cabinet may com- 
plete the recall of its visible aspect. It often happens to us 
to meet persons in the street, whom we have formerly seen, 
but cannot tell who they are ; something brings to mind the 
place of our former meeting, which, although of itself unable 
to effect the recall, in co-operation with the other, may be 
found adequate. Abercrombie relates that, walking in the 
street one day, he met a lady whose face was familiar, but 
whose name and connexions he could not remember. Some 
time after, he passed a cottage, to which he had been taken six 
months before, to see a gentleman who had met with an acci- 
dent on the road, and had been taken there insensible. He then 
remembered that the lady was the wife of that patient. The 
local association completed the defective link in his memory. 



MULTIPLE ASSOCIATIONS WITH PERSONS. 153 

The connexions with persons frequently unite with other 
contiguous links. Objects become associated with their 
owners, makers, inventors, with all persons concerned in their 
use, or frequenting their locality. Many of those associations 
are imperfect in themselves, but capable of adding something 
to other associating bonds. A doctrine may be recalled partly 
by its subject, and partly by its being a doctrine of Aristotle 
or of Locke. The buildings rendered famous by great men 
may be remembered through this bond, in conjunction with 
locality. 

We may adduce the converse case, the recall of persons 
by multiple associations. The relations of human beings are 
so numerous as to give frequent occasion to their being re- 
membered by the union of many bonds. Persons are asso- 
ciated with their name ; with locality, habitation, and places 
of resort ; with blood and lineage, a very powerful mental tie, 
in consequence of the strength of the family feelings ; with 
associates and friends; with occupation, pursuits, amusements ; 
with property and possessions ; with rank and position ; with 
the many attributes that make up character and reputation ; 
with a particular age ; with the time they have lived in ; with 
the vicissitudes and incidents that mark the course of their 
life. Desiring to recall the names of the Cabinet Ministers, 
we might think of them first as enumerated in a list ; if we 
failed to remember any one or more, we should then recall the 
departments of state, next the leading men in the Lords and 
in the Commons, and so on, till everyone was brought up to 
mind. 

The connexion with uses and properties is a frequent means 
of association, both single and in combination. In recalling 
some great exhibition of works of industry, we assist the local 
alliances with the associations of use; we go over mentally 
the implements of Agriculture, Mining, Engineering, War ; 
wearing apparel, furniture, &c. So with regard to the natural 
properties of things — the physical and chemical properties of 
a salt, the distinguishing marks of a vegetable species, the 
anatomy of an animal. Iron, nickel, and cobalt are remem- 
bered in part by their magnetic properties ; the simple bodies 
in chemistry are associated with the idea of simplicity ; the 
oxides with their containing oxygen. 

Successions. Among the various kinds of succession ad- 
verted to, under Contiguity, there may be cases of combina- 
tion. The memory of any series of events may be assisted by 
collateral and concurring series, or by conjunctions, such as 



154 COMPOUND ASSOCIATION. 

above described. In the grand succession of our total ex- 
perience in the Order of Time, many intermediate links that 
fail us, when exclusively relied on, are yet able to count in 
combined action. Our historical recollections are almost 
always composite ; the main thread is helped by collateral 
currents, conjunctions, and associations ; and we are so well 
aware of this, that, whenever we are at a loss, we make an 
express search for such additional aids. To remember any 
considerable series of events, say in English history, we should 
have to avail ourselves of concurring associations with persons, 
places, striking incidents,, casual conjunctions. Thinking of 
the 16th century, we remember the two great monarchs be- 
tween whose reigns it was almost equally divided ; with their 
personalities many of the events are associated so strongly as 
to be recalled by that single link ; others less strongly, and 
recoverable only in combination with a different link, as the 
date or order of time. Localities and local objects — the 
metropolis, the Tower, Tilbury fort, the monasteries — contri- 
bute additional ties, some sufficient in themselves, the rest 
useful in raising other links to the point of sufficiency. 

Language. The coherence of names, and of trains of lan- 
guage, is a very large fraction of our total acquisitions. We 
are often aided here by composite links. When unable to 
recall a name, we fall back upon the circumstances of last 
hearing it, or on some other known bond of connexion. 

Many of oar recollections are a mixture of language with 
our conceptions of things. A discourse heard impresses us 
partly as a train of words, partly as a train of thoughts, 
images, and feelings ; the remembrance of it is therefore of a 
compound nature. The learner in any subject, as Geometry, 
depends partly on his verbal memory, partly on his memory 
for the actual conceptions, the lines, angles, circles, &c. A 
pictorial description is held by verbal associations in conjunc- 
tion with the hold of the purely pictorial elements. In all 
such cases, defects in the one train may be supplied from the 
other. 

COMPOSITION OF SIMILAKITIES. 

3. The case of plurality of points of likeness contri- 
buting to the recall of something past, is sufficiently re- 
presented under the Law of Similarity. 

It is merely a case of greater resemblance, the effect of 
which is to augment the chances of recall. If a thought, re- 



SECOND-RATE TALENT. 155 

sembling in the subject some one previously known, has also 
a resemblance in the language, the operation of similarity in 
restoring the fact is so much the more certain. If we are 
reading a work which has imitated, or borrowed from, some 
other work that we have known, the similarity does not strike 
at first, but as we go on, the increasing number of resembling 
points brings on the flash of recognition. Wherever we have 
any means of increasing the similarity, and reducing the di- 
versity, between what is present and what is out of mind, we 
necessarily provoke the reviving encounter. 

MIXED CONTIGUITY AND SIMILARITY. 

4. Things first brought together by the stroke of Simi- 
larity are afterwards retained by the help of Contiguity. 

A man of inventive reach of mind brings up a new simile, 
or achieves a great identification in science. The two remote 
things thus brought together may then be made coherent by 
contiguous association ; the recall at first due to genius is 
afterwards caused by memory. It is thus that we remember 
the fetches of great poets, and the scientific generalities that 
are the triumphs of modern discovery. 

There is, however, an intermediate stage, wherein great 
strokes of Similarity may not have become matter of pure 
memory by Contiguity, but are recovered partly by the force 
of the similarity, and partly by the aid of a nascent, but in- 
complete, contiguous association. It is by this mixed or 
united hold, that a second-rate mind can appropriate and use 
the inventions of original minds, before they have become so 
hackneyed and common as to be in everybody's memory. It is 
in the same way that we can retain scientific truths, through 
our own perception of their generalizing sweep, when once 
they have been brought to our view. No man could take hold 
of any large amount of scientific doctrines, without seeing 
for himself the similarities that they involve, besides his 
memory of the statements of them. We can, after New ton, 
compare Terrestrial with Celestial gravity, and keep in mind 
his law by the force of the similarity that makes one recall 
the other ; we are also assisted by the contiguous junction of 
the two facts in the wording of the law. 

5. The reviving stroke of Similarity may be aided by 
the proximity of the things desired. 

A poet living in the country falls readily upon rural 



156 COMPOUND ASSOCIATION. 

images. Tlie books that we have lately read are the most 
likely to furnish parallels to any present subject. Hence, an 
important rule for assisting invention — namely, to refresh our 
minds with the subjects where we expect to find the identities 
that we are in quest of. A natural philosopher is in need of 
certain mathematical formulaa, but is unable to discover those 
that are suitable ; his resource is to renew his mathematical 
studies for a time, thereby coming into closer mental proxi- 
mity with the whole range of the department. Gibbon tells 
us that he replenished his resources of sarcasm, by perusing 
annually Pascal's Provincial Letters. So a poet might pre- 
pare himself for composing in the Spenserian stanza, by fami- 
liarizing himself with the Faerie Queen, and the other models. 
In whatever point a writer either feels intellectual weakness, 
or desires to be unusually strong, he should keep close com- 
panionship with the highest examples of the quality. If he 
aspires to elevated diction, his flight will be aided by frequent 

recurrence to JEschvlus and Milton. 

ti 

6. The bond of similarity is sometimes artificially 
employed as a help to Memory. 

The art of Mnemonics, or artificial memory, among other 
devices, uses a combination of similarity and contiguity. 
One of the simplest examples is the use of alliteration ; the 
sequence of words 'life and liberty' is better remembered 
than 'life and freedom.' The effect would also arise from the 
arrangement of a series of leading names in the alphabetical 
order of their commencing letters. Verse is a mnemonic aid ; 
knowing the metrical form that a saying must assume, we have 
already a certain hold of it by similarity, which will in part 
make up for the weakness of the contiguous bond. 

Another mnemonic art, applicable to the learning of a string 
of words, as the exceptions to a rule in grammar, is to arrange 
them so as to have a connexion of meaning. Thus, in English, 
there are certain verbs that are followed by other verbs in the 
infinitive without the use of the preposition ' to.' For remem- 
bering these more easily, we might cast them thus: — feel, hear, 
see (senses), will, shall, may, can, do, have (auxiliaries), let, bid, 
make, dare, durst, must, need (different forms of permission and 
compulsion). 

THE ELEMENT OF FEELING. 

7. The link of Feeling may enter powerfully into com- 
posite association. 



EMOTIONAL CONTROL OF THE THOUGHTS. 157 

Tlie association of objects and feelings has been already 
noticed (Contiguity, § 80). The consequences, which are 
numerous and far-reaching, will be still farther traced in the 
description of the higher emotions. 

A present feeling is a power in the mind, retaining and 
reviving the objects that are in harmony with it, and repelling 
such as are discordant, or merely indifferent. In an affec- 
tionate mood, the thoughts and images partake of love and 
tenderness. The habitual egotist has a facility in recalling 
facts for his own glorification. 

When a number of things are equally open to be suggested 
by the intellectual bonds, the emotional state gives the pre- 
ference. The thoughts of persons of intense feelings, and of 
small intellectual power, have the monotonous stamp of the 
prevailing emotion ; such are fond and weak-minded mothers, 
exclusive devotees to business, and enthusiastic temperaments 
in general. The plausibility of characters in fiction or romance 
is made to depend on this circumstance. All the thoughts 
and expressions of a Shylock bear the cast of the feelings 
attributed to him. 

INFLUENCE OF VOLITION. 

8. The influence of the Will in intellectual production 
is indirect. 

No mere urgency of motive can make a feeble bond 
stronger. If one's life were to depend upon an effort of 
memory beyond the pitch of the formed adhesion, it would be 
of little avail. 

(1) A powerful Motive, by exciting the system, may 
exalt the intensity of the mental processes. 

Any great pain to be avoided, or pleasure to be com- 
manded, is accompanied with an increased nervous action, 
under which all the powers are enhanced, including the forces 
of revival by contiguity and similarity. The effect of increased 
cerebral action is seen in the extreme case of the delirium of 
fever, during which long- forgotten trains have sometimes been 
revived with minute fidelity. The greatest stretches of inven- 
tion usually require a more than ordinary cerebral excitement, 
sometimes worked up by physical stimulants, but commonly 
arising in the voluntary effort. 

(2) The Will operates under the form of Attention, or 
mental concentration upon special objects present to the 
view. 



158 COMPOUND ASSOCIATION. 

It is probable that a greater force of attention, directed 
npon what is present, will in some degree quicken the power 
to revive the associated past. In difficult recollection, we 
assume this to be the case ; anxious to recall the name of a 
distant hill, we gaze upon the hill for some time, thinking 
thereby to add to the chance of the recovery. We can do the 
same with a mere mental image : the will fixes the mental 
attention as well as the bodily — a fact very much in favour of 
the doctrine as to the seat of revived impressions. If we come 
to a stand in repeating a discourse, we dwell strongly upon 
the last remembered words ; if a local association snaps, we 
concentrate the mind upon the part next the break. 

(3) The Will prompts the search after collateral links* 

It has been seen, that, by uniting several links, each too 
weak of itself, we may form a compound that will be suffi- 
cient. Now, by a voluntary act, we can go off in search of 
these collateral bonds. Not remembering in the order of time, 
all the chief events of a given century, we can, by mere 
voluntary determination, pass to other links, as persons, 
places, and notable circumstances; 

The power of the Will over the trains of thought, through 
these indirect means, may be considerable. We may not at 
once determine what thoughts shall arise, but, of those that 
have arisen, we can determine the attention upon some rather 
than upon others ; the withdrawal of the attention from any 
one will nullify its power of farther reproduction. We thus 
refrain from pursuing trains not available for the purpose in 
hand. If we are building up a geological speculation, we 
confine our local recollections to geological features. 

It may be remarked as frequently occurring, that although 
there are present to the mind one or more objects, each richly 
associated with mental trains, yet there is nothing actually 
suggested. The inertness may be owing to various causes, 
highly illustrative of the workings of the intellect. It may 
arise from mere exhaustion, indolence, or inactivity. The 
condition of the mind and brain in respect of activity, is very 
variable, and very much within our control. Or, again, the 
forces of the mind may have got into a set track or attitude, 
opposing a certain resistance to the assumption of any other 
trains of thought ; as when some one subject engrosses our 
attention, so that even during a break in the actual current 
of the thoughts, other subjects are not entertained. And, 
farther, when numerous solicitations on different sides are 



CONFLICTING POINTS OF VIEW. 159 

nearly equally balanced, the result is a kind of intellectual 
suspense ; when an object is associated equally with many 
outgoing trains, as the sun, or the sea, no start is made till 
some concurring links point to one definite movement. If 
the sea is stormy and we are contemplating a sea voyage, we 
are led off into all the trains of recollection of our seafaring 
experience. 

OBSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATIONS. 

9. The power to assist includes the power to resist. 
Any agency that is helpful when with us, is obstructive 
when against us. This is fully applicable to the case of 
concurring associations. 

It often happens that we fail to remember a name, from 
having the mind pre-occupied with a wrong syllable. So 
when things are lost ; should we accidentally be prepossessed 
with some mistaken locality, or some erroneous supposition, 
we have not the full benefit of our power of recollection in the 
matter ; at some other time, when the wrong prepossession has 
left us, our memory may be quite adequate to the recall. 

The history of science would furnish many instances of dis- 
coveries kept back by the force of a prejudice or pre- occu- 
pation, some false bent or cue once getting hold of men's 
minds. Several of the glimpses of Aristotle in Psychology were 
nearer the truth than the views that long prevailed after him ; 
not so much from his superior genius, as from his not being 
involved in the mazes of an ultra- spiritualistic philosophy. It 
is remarked of Priestley, that though he began his researches 
in Chemistry with little knowledge of what had been already 
done, he entered on the subject free from the prejudices that 
warped the judgment and limited the view of the educated 
chemists. 

Obstructive associations may be traced, on a grand scale, 
in the conflict of different modes of viewing the objects and 
occurrences of the world. There is a standing hostility 
between the Artistic and the Scientific modes of looking at 
things, and an opposition less marked between the Scientific, 
or the Theoretical, and the Practical points of view. The 
artistic mind is obstructed by the presence of considera- 
tions of scientific truth ; and the scientific mind, bent on being 
artistic, walks encumbered, and with diminished energy. 
Poetic fiction is never so brilliant as when the poet is un- 
trammeled by a regard to truth. 



160 COMPOUND ASSOCIATION. 

A good instance of the obstructiveness of incompatible 
ideas is found in the effort of guessing riddles and conun- 
drums. These usually turn upon the equivocal meanings of 
words. Now a mind that makes use of language to pass to the 
serious import or genuine meanings, is disqualified from follow- 
ing out the play of equivocation, not because the requisite 
associations do not exist, but because these are overborne by 
others inimical to the whole proceeding. 

ASSOCIATION OF CONTKAST. 

10. It being known as a fact, that objects, on many 
occasions,, recall their contraries ; Contrast, or Contrariety, 
has been admitted among the forces that revive past 
thoughts. The influence may be analyzed as follows : — 

(1 ) Contrast is a phase of the primary function of mind, 
named Discrimination or Relativity. 

If every state of feeling and of knowledge implies a tran- 
sition, and is therefore a double or two-sided fact, our know- 
ledge is essentially a cognition of contraries. Heat means, 
not an absolute state, but the shock of a transition from cold ; 
the recent cold is as essential to the fact as the present heat. 
When we think of heat, we have a tacit reference to cold ; 
when we think of ' up/ we have a tacit reference to ' down.' 
To pass into the contrary cognition in these cases, is merely 
to reverse the order of the couple, to make cold the explicit, 
and heat the implicit element. 

(2) Contrasts are frequently suggested by Contiguity. 

A great number of the more usual contrasts acquire a 
farther connexion through the habitual transitions of thought 
and speech. Our memory contains numerous associated 
couples, — up and down, great and small, rich and poor, true 
and false, life and death. 

When we come to understand the value of contrast as a 
Rhetorical device both for intensifying the expression of 
feeling, and for clearness in expounding doctrine, we acquire 
the habit of introducing contrasts on all important occasions. 

(3) The mutual suggestion of contraries may be partly 
due to Similarity. 

There is an old maxim that contraries must have a ground 
of likeness. This is true of all contraries up to the highest 
contrast of all (Object and Subject). Matter and Space are 
in the genus Extension (the Object) : Intellect and Feeling 



CONTRAST AN EMOTIONAL EFFECT. 161 

are both under Mind, the subject ; blue and red are in the 
class colour. Thus, while the highest opposition can be sug- 
gested only by Relativity or pure Contrast, the lower kinds 
introduce an element of similarity in their generic agreement. 
Wealth may suggest poverty, partly by the opposition, and 
partly by leading us to think of the generic subject — human 
conditions. 

It is by the mutual attraction of similars, that we are 
made alive to contradictions. We hear a certain affirmation ; 
the sameness of subject recalls a previous affirmation of an 
opposite tenor. The announcement that a certain rock is of a 
sedimentary origin, brings to our mind by similarity the idea 
of the same rock, coupled with the assertion of its igneous 
origin. 

(4) Many Contrasts are stamped on the mind through 
Emotion. 

Apart from the influence of the shock of change, necessary 
to consciousness in any degree, the mind may be quickened 
by strong special emotions. When any quality is in excess, 
as heat, cold, exercise, rest, we are urged to think of the 
opposite as a desired relief. The disappointment of our ex- 
pectations may take the form of a shock of contrast ; looking 
for favour, we may encounter contumely ; a journey for health 
may confirm our malady. 

The contrasts of Poetry and Art are transitions for height- 
ening an effect. 

The moralist delights in pourtraying the contrasts in 
human conditions — the pride of prosperity with the chances 
of misfortune and the certainty of the last end. 



OHAPTEE IV. 
CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

1. By means of association, the mind has the power 
to form Combinations, or aggregates, different from any- 
thing actually experienced. 

The processes named Imagination, Creation, Constructive- 
ness, have not been taken account of in the preceding exposi- 
11 



162 CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

tion. In Similarity, we had before us a power tending to 
originality and invention ; bnt the genius of the mechanical 
inventor, the man of science, the poet, the painter, the musi- 
cian, implies something more complex. In the steam-engine, 
in the science of geometry, in Paradise Lost, we find something 
beyond the grandest fetches of Similarity. 

Nevertheless, the intellectual powers already described are 
sufficient for these creations ; the addition consists of a stimu- 
lus and guidance supplied by the Feelings and the Will. 
This will appear from the examples. 

MECHANICAL CONSTKUCTIVENESS. 

2. In Mechanical Acquisition, we have often to com- 
bine movements into new groupings. An exercise of 
volition, directed to the movements separately, brings 
them together in the first instance. 

In learning to dance, the separate positions are first 
acquired ; when the will can command these, the pupil is 
directed to combine them into the steps and figures ; these at 
last become coherent by the plastic force of Contiguity. It is 
the same with military drill, and with education in the manual 
arts ; the learner is first able to command certain elementary 
movements, and then unites them, in time and order, as 
directed. 

Sometimes the process is to dissociate and suppress move- 
ments, as in endeavouring to walk without swinging the 
arms. The instrumentality is the same. One effort of voli- 
tion determines the complex movement ; another is directed 
to the members to be arrested; and the required act is the 
result of the differential operation. 

When a complex act has to be performed, made up of timed 
and ordered movements, successive attempts are needed to 
make them fall into their places. Thus, in learning to swim, 
we throw out the limbs, by separate volitions, but cannot at 
first attain to the exact rhythm of the swimmer. After a time, 
we make the effort that happily combines every movement in 
the proper order. The difficulty is at an end : we then keep 
up the successful conjunction, and fall into it, at pleasure, 
ever afterwards. 

These constructions of our mechanical or muscular ener- 
gies, exemplify the three conditions or essentials of the Con- 
structive process of the Intellect. 

(1) There must be a command of the separate elements. 



CONDITIONS OF THE CONSTRUCTIVE PROCESS. 163 

The more thorough and complete this command, the easier is 
the work of uniting them into new combinations. 

(2) There must be an idea, plan, or conception, of the de- 
sired combinations ; some mental delineation of it, such as to 
make us aware when we have succeeded. This idea may be a 
model for imitation, as the fugleman of a company at drill ; 
or it may be a conception of the effect to be produced, as in 
laying out grounds. In other cases, it is a verbal combina- 
tion or description, as when we are told to conceive a gold 
mountain. 

(3) There is a series of tentatives, or a process of trial and 
error. The distinct volitions are put in exercise to bring on 
the separate movements, but these do not at first chime in to 
the joint result; the sense of failure determines another 
trial, and then another, until some one prove successful. 
The moment of success is attended with a certain satisfaction, 
or elation, under which arises a re-inforced prompting to 
maintain the fortunate combination ; and the circumstances 
are then, in the highest degree, favourable for the beginning 
of a permanent association. 

VERBAL CONSTRUCTIVENESS. 

3. Verbal constructiveness is exemplified, first, in learn- 
ing to Articulate. 

A certain power of uttering the elementary articulations — 
the vowels, consonants, and simpler syllables — being pre- 
supposed, it is desired to combine these into w^ords, under the 
spur of imitation. The ear supplies the type to be conformed 
to ; the will urges various tentatives ; there is a sense of these 
being unconformable to the type, which invites renewal, until 
conformity is attained. The child can pronounce the syllables 
may, ree, in separation ; it hears Mary, with the wish to say 
the word ; the first endeavours are sensibly wrong ; they are 
renewed, and, at some favourable conjuncture, the two syllables 
fall exactly together in the right order. The ear is satisfied 
and delighted, and a gush of nervous influence accompanies the 
satisfaction, which goes a good way to cement the connexion ; 
every succeeding endeavour involves fewer stumbles, and the 
association is at last completed. 

The child's initial difficulties in this acquirement are owing 
to the imperfect command of the elementary sounds. The 
voice is not at first formed to them, and the voluntary link 
that arouses them is for a long time wanting. 



164 CONSTRICTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

4. The combining of words into Sentences is a farther 
exercise of constructiveness. 

To imitate literally a sentence heard, is substantially the 
same effort as now described. A farther advance is exemplified, 
when the child constructs new sentences to suit new mean- 
ings. From the combination 'good boy/ and the separate 
name * Tom/ coupled with an approving sentiment towards 
Tom, the will is prompted to dissociate and recombine the 
forni, ' Tom/ so as to make ' good Tom.' The idea or type in 
the mind is to convey some expression having the same force 
towards the new subject, as the old form has towards ' boy ; ' 
there must be a feeling, from analogy, that 'good Tom' 
answers the end; and accordingly, when this is struck out, there 
follows the throb of successful endeavour. As before, the more 
or less easy attainment of the end depends on the familiarity 
with the constituents. When a considerable variety of sen- 
tences have been mastered, the process of dropping out and 
taking in, to answer new meanings, is performed with the 
utmost rapidity. 

5. The highest Combinations of Language fulfil the 
same conditions. 

It is necessary, first, to lay up in the memory a certain 
store of names (allied to things), and of formed combinations 
of these into affirmations, clauses, sentences, and connected 
portions of discourse, with meanings attached. This acquired 
store contains the material of new compositions ; the more 
abundant and the more familiar the verbal sequences at com- 
mand, and the nearer they approach to our requirements, the 
less troublesome will be the work of composition. A meaning 
has to be expressed, partly, but not wholly, coinciding with 
expressed meanings already laid up in the memory; the 
nearest of these previous forms are recalled by the associating 
forces ; we operate upon them by combination, by excision, and 
by substitution, until our mind is satisfied that the resulting 
verbal construction embraces the subject proposed. 

The compliance with other conditions, besides the signify- 
ing of a meaning, demands greater resources to start from, or 
else more numerous tentatives. Not to mention the forms of 
grammar, which are comparatively easy to satisfy when the 
stored up arrangements have been grammatical, there may be 
in the mind certain ideals of perspicuity, of terseness, of 
elegance, of melody, of cadence, all which have to be complied 



CONSTRUCTIVENESS IN LANGUAGE. 165 

with by the method of tentatives. It is then requisite to com- 
pose many sentences to the same meaning, in order to choose 
one that combines the other requisites. But in order to em- 
body each one of those high demands, we must have already, 
in the memory, numerous forms adapted to each ; forms of 
perspicuous statement, of brevity, of elegance, of melody. We 
should also have a very decided feeling of the result when 
attained. 

To take the example of Versification. The power of verse- 
making supposes a memory largely stored with verses. A 
given meaning has to be expressed in verse. The prose mind, 
following the lead of meaning, would first light upon a prose 
form, and, on that as a basis, would proceed to make the 
accommodations needed for verse. The true poet, however, 
is he that ' lisped in numbers, for the numbers came ; ' his 
first basis of operations is a metrical form ; this is shaped and 
modified to comply with the signification, yet never departing 
from metre. 

FEELINGS OF MOVEMENT. 

6. We may, by help of experience, create new com- 
binations in the Ideas or Feelings of Force and Movement. 

The most important muscular feelings, for the purposes of 
the intellect, are our numerous impressions of resistance, 
pressure, movement, embodied in the various muscles and 
muscular groupings. Through the hand and arm, we have 
engrained impressions or ideas of different degrees of weight 
and resistance — one pound, four pounds, twenty pounds. It 
is possible to construct intermediate grades or varieties of 
quantity. Given the idea of a one pound weight, and the 
idea of a double or a treble, we can, by an effort of construc- 
tion, form some approximate idea of two pounds or three 
pounds. The main condition is still the vividness of our hold 
of the constituent notions. The greatest difficulty lies in 
knowing when we have succeeded, it not being in our power 
to say exactly that the constructed impression corresponds to 
the double or the triple of the original. 

The graduation of our muscular efforts to a certain end, 
as hitting a mark, or striking a measured blow, supposes the 
power of interpolating shades of muscular consciousness. The 
feelings of Architectural fitness are an excellent example of the 
same constructiveness. From our experience of the weight 
and the tenacity of small pieces of stone, we take upon our- 



166 CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

selves to judge what bulk of support is needed, in a column, 
for masses altogether beyond our means of direct estimate. 

It is by a vague effort of constructiveness, applied to our 
muscular acquirements, that we conceive untraversed dis- 
tances, as the remote Alpine summits, the moon and the stars. 
We increase numerically known exertions of our own — that is, 
combine them with notions of multiplied quantity, and thereby 
obtain representations, doubtless feeble and inadequate, of 
these vast distances. 

The emotional feelings of movement fall under the analogy 
of the emotions generally, which are given in a separate head. 

CONSTRUCTIVENESS IN THE SENSATIONS, 

7. In the Sensations of the Senses, whether Emotional 
or Intellectual, there is large scope for original construc- 
tions. 

In the lower senses, as those of Organic Life, Taste, and 
Smell, the principal effect is emotional, and is attended by the 
circumstances special to the feelings. We may, by a great 
effort, conceive new forms of organic pain or pleasure, pro- 
vided they are resolvable into elements known to us. If it be 
true, that the pains of parturition are of the nature of spasm, 
or cramp, they may to some extent be conceived through that 
experience. The pain of gout may be realized through the 
knowledge of other modes of acute inflammatory pain. Many 
modes of acute pain are comparable to scalding heat. 

So with the pleasurable organic feelings. We all know 
what exhilaration is, and can conceive the general fact with 
varieties of mode. We may thence be made to conceive the 
exciting effect of some unknown stimulant, as opium or Indian 
hemp. 

The obstacle in such a case is the low intellectual per- 
sistence of these feelings ; we cannot, without considerable 
striving, recover an organic state under a present state of an 
alien character. Even the familiar pleasures of eating are not 
easy to revive ideally in their absence. The constructive 
exertion is fruitless, if the elements have no abiding hold of 
the mind. 

Tastes, as being more intellectually persistent than organic 
states, are more constructive. From the experience of 
relishes, sweets, bitters, &c, we might conceive a complex 
taste never known, a new mixture of relish and bitterness, of 
sweet and sour. So with Smells. We might endeavour to 



TOUCH. — HEAKING. — SIGHT. 167 

conceive assafoetida from garlic, or an oriental spice-grove 
from our own flowers and perfumes. 

In the higher senses, the examples are ahundant. In 
Touch, Hearing, and Sight, the pleasures and pains, as being 
more intellectually persistent, are more constructive, than the 
feelings of the lower senses ; while the sensations whose char- 
acter is knowledge, and not feeling, are pre-eminently disposed 
to the combining operation. 

We have a large experience of Touches, soft, pungent, 
hard, rough, smooth, and may often be called upon, to realize 
new varieties. Many minerals have specialities of touch ; 
for example, asbestos. If we had never touched cork, we 
should have to combine mentally the several elements, namely, 
a special kind of soft touch, warmth, and lightness. 

The textile bodies have specialities of touch ; and from 
the experience of a certain number we are qualified to con- 
ceive others, if resolvable into the known. The blind must 
frequently perform this operation. 

In the sense of Touch, considered as including muscular 
exertion, there is scope for constructing grades of tactual size 
and form, as well as pressure and resistance. 

In the sense of Hearing, there is frequent occasion for con- 
structiveness. We maybe asked to conceive unheard sounds, 
as the muttering of an earthquake, the crash of a falling house, 
the shout of a battalion in a bayonet charge. The describer, 
in these cases, must assign some sounds known to us, such as, 
if combined and intensified, would approach the reality. An 
ear retentive for sounds generally, and a special familiarity 
with those to be combined, would be conditions of success. 

In Sight, constructiveness is facilitated by the intellectual 
quality of the sense. Given a dead colour, we could conceive 
it made brilliant or lustrous. It is a more doubtful matter 
whether we could make the construction supposed by Hume, 
namely, to interpose an unexperienced shade of colour. Inas- 
much as all the varieties of colour are reducible to three 
primary colours, there should be a possibility of picturing 
new shades. Hobbes's example, a mountain of gold, typifies a 
comparatively easy class of constructions, the alteration of 
colour in a given form ; such are a white crow, a room when 
painted, a sketch when the colours are laid in, London built 
of the stone of Edinburgh, or of Paris. Here we have to dis- 
miss or dissociate one element, and introduce another, an 
operation that may be very much thwarted or aided by the 
feelings : the colour most agreeable in itself will cling to us 



168 CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

by preference. Another class involves the putting together 
of new shapes, as the mermaid, the dragon, the chimsera, 
Milton's pictures of Sin and Death. 

The ready hold of the elements to be combined is still the 
grand condition of success. Also, in order to possess ourselves 
permanently of a new image, by means of construction, we 
must continue or repeat the effort, as for any other desired re- 
membrance. 

CONSTRUCTION OF NEW EMOTIONS. 

8. Examples may be taken from the higher Emotions. 

The more simple Emotions, as Wonder, Fear, Love, Power, 
must be known by experience. Even although we be able to 
resolve into simpler elements, Self-complacency, Anger, the 
Intellectual Emotions, the Artistic and the Moral Feelings, yet 
some experience should be had of them as compounds, in order 
to enlarge the constructive basis. 

The simplest exercise of construction would be to change 
the degree of an emotion ; as in entering into the feelings of 
another person, habitually more or less courageous, loving, self- 
complacent, irascible, than one's-self. We should then have to 
multiply or diminish our known states of feeling, together with 
their collaterals and consequences. We should not merely 
endeavour to intensify our conception of courage, for example ; 
we should also deal with its occasions, its expression, and its 
results, which also, being multiplied, would support the attempt 
to magnify the proper emotion. As a considerable aid, we 
might go back to the occasion when our own feeling was acci- 
dentally stimulated to an intense degree. 

Any one feebly constituted in the emotions generally would 
be disqualified from realizing a temperament of the opposite 
stamp, unless by a very intense exertion. So it would be with 
a person of weak volition endeavouring to conceive a man of 
energy. There is a natural repugnance to the very attempt to 
pass so far out of one's own bounds ; whence the maxim — to 
know a man we must love him. 

A still more frequent exercise is to transfer a familiar emo- 
tion to a new object. This is the way that we enter into other 
men's tastes, and likings, their fears, hatreds, and antipathies. 
We have the feelings in ourselves, and we can by an effort of 
construction suppose them to invest other objects. Ambition 
is at bottom the same, whether for temporal power or for 
spiritual power ; for official command, or for intellectual and 
moral sway. The sentiment of worship is generically alike, 



TRANSFER OF EMOTIONS TO NEW OBJECTS. 169 

whatever be the objects of worship ; still, a considerable effort 
would be necessary for a Christian to enter into the manner of 
feeling of a Pagan, or for a Calvinist to sympathize with a 
Romanist. 

The authors of Poetry and Romance have to unfold the 
workings of characters far removed from their own, which 
involves emotional constructiveness. In such cases, it is desir- 
able to check the imaginative adaptation, by actual observa- 
tion of individuals nearly approaching to the type in view. 
This is the usual course of novelists, when pourtraying a charac- 
ter far removed from their own. Goethe's 'Fair Saint,' in 
Wilhelm Meister, was depicted from acquaintance with a real 
person. 

CONCRETING THE ABSTRACT. 

9. The forming, out of abstract elements, images in the 
Concrete, is an application of constructiveness. 

We may join together size, form, and colour into a con- 
crete visible image ; as when we are told to fancy to our- 
selves a golden ingot of given dimensions. So we may con- 
ceive a building from its plans, elevations, and known material. 
The facility in such cases, depends, for the most part, upon 
the ideal hold of colour. When there is great complication of 
form, something depends on the muscular retentiveness of the 
eye. 

Another case is the conceiving of a country from a map, 
the actual dimensions and the colours being also given. The 
mind must endeavour to regain as vividly as possible the 
memories most nearly corresponding to the prescribed ele- 
ments, and by a voluntary act hold them in the view till they 
fuse into a concrete. Or, we may start from a well-remem- 
bered concrete, and strike out and insert portions, till it suit 
the elements given. 

It is substantially the same operation to picture to our- 
selves minerals, plants, and animals, from their descriptions, 
with or without the aid of drawings. 

REALIZING OF REPRESENTATION OR DESCRIPTION. 

10. To realize Verbal descriptions, or other Representa- 
tions of things not experienced, is a constructive process. 

This is but the continuation of the foregoing cases. Lan- 
guage, pictures, sculptured forms, models, and diagrams are 
modes of indicating the elements, whose mental combination 



]70 CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION.. 

will give the idea of the object intended. It is a part of the 
Rhetorical Art, to show how to describe things so as to give 
the utmost aid to the mind in conceiving them. 

The realizing of things, not personally experienced, but 
brought before us in description or other indication, is the 
chief meaning of the act of Conceiving, or Conception, some- 
times treated as one of the intellectual faculties. It passes 
above memory, as being an exercise of Constructiveness, and 
falls below Imagination proper, as containing no exercise of 
originality or invention. 

CONSTRUCTIVENESS IN SCIENCE. 

11. The Abstractions, Inductions, Deductions, and 
Experimental Discoveries of Science, already included 
under similarity, also involve constructiveness- 

To begin with Abstraction. We may represent a form by 
an outline diagram as in Euclid. Bat this, as giving a 
definite size, colour, and material, is not an abstraction. The 
most perfect type of the abstract idea is the verbal definition, 
which is a construction of language adapted to exclude what- 
ever does not belong to the generalized attribute. The 
definition, 'a line is length without breadth,' is a verbal con- 
struction, intended to give what belongs to the line in the 
abstract. So with the definitions of science generally ; inertia, 
polarity, heat, cell, animal, mind, and so on. They are, on 
the part of the first framers, exercises of original construction, 
proceeding tentatively till a form of words is arrived at, con- 
formable to all the individuals to be included in the generality. 

Induction presents no new peculiarity. All inductions 
have at last to be shaped and tied down by precise language, 
expressing neither more nor less than is common to the facts 
comprehended in each. Sometimes an induction is made up 
of numerical and geometrical elements, as the laws of Kepler, 
and Sneli's law of Sines. These involve, in the first instance, 
discoveries of Similarity. 

The Deductive Sciences are made up of a vast machinery, 
exemplifying, in a remarkable degree, the creative or construc- 
tive, as opposed to the merely reproductive, processes of the 
mind. Nature does not provide cubic equations, chemical 
formulae, or syllogistic schemes. These are built up by slow 
degrees, out of elementary symbols, and the constructions are 
governed and checked by the ends to be served. 

The discoveries of Experimental Science are a more pal- 



THE GENIUS OF THE INVENTOR. 171 

pable and obvious case of constructiveness, being mostly 
material operations. The first inventor of an instrument, as 
the air-pump, may have certain previous instruments to proceed 
upon, as the common water-pump, the instruments for enclos- 
ing air, &c; these he tentatively modifies and adapts till the 
new end is answered. 

PRACTICAL CONSTRUCTIONS. 

12. In all the departments of Practice, there are 
examples of constructive arrangement. 

The discoveries and devices of the mechanical arts consist 
in machinery adapted to ends. They may be described in the 
terms above applied to the Experimental discoveries of science. 

The mere transfer, by a stroke of Similarity, of a machinery 
already in use to a new case, constitutes one department of 
practical invention ; as in the extension of the wheel and 
pinion to all kinds of machinery. But a very great number of 
advances in machinery are absolutely new creations, as in the 
first invention of the mechanic powers, the pump, the melting 
of metals, the devices of surgery. There must be a certain 
amount of accident to begin with ; but the accidents must fall 
into the hands of men prepared, by a peculiar east of mind, for 
turning them to account. The main qualities of the inventive 
genius for practice are — intellectual attainments in the subject 
matter of the discoveries, activity of temperament applied to 
the making of experiments, and a charm or fascination for the 
subject. Such men as Kepler, Hooke, Priestley, James Watt, 
Sir William Herschell, combined the intellectual, active, and 
emotional constituents of great inventors in the arts. To re- 
sources of knowledge, they added an equally indispensable 
gift, — compounded of activity and emotional interest — namely, 
unwearied groping and experimentation. Mere handicraft 
skill is also an element in mechanical constructiveness. 

The like qualities belong to the contrivers of business ar- 
rangements, of social organization, law, and administration. 
Sometimes, a mere fetch of Similarity is enough, but oftener 
there is a long series of tentatives, ending in a construction 
suitable to the object sought. The organization of an army, 
the keeping of public accounts, the management of a large 
factory, are the result of innumerable trials checked by felt 
similarity to the ends. 

The quality of mind named Judgment, has a meaning with 
reference to constructiveness, being a clear sense of the pur- 



172 CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

pose to be served, and of the fitness of any construction for 
that purpose. Judgment is often put in contrast to genius, 
or intellectual fertility ; it does not provide the suggestions, 
but tests them. There are various obstacles to the exercise of 
a severe judgment of the fitness of means to ends ; — impa- 
tience of the labour of repeated constructions, self-conceit, 
and a feeble sense of the importance of the objects to be 
gained. Wellington is, by common consent, held to have 
been a man of pre-eminent judgment, at least in military 
affairs. 

The adapting of one's views and plans to the opinions of 
others, as in party leadership, is a case containing all the ele- 
ments of constructiveness. According to the number of con- 
ditions to be fulfilled, the operation is the more protracted, 
the mental conflict more severe, and the greater the demand 
for variety of suggestions, the product of associating forces 
working on previous knowledge. Long experience, by accu- 
mulating constructions already formed, diminishes the labour 
in suiting the new cases. 

The imitating of a model is an instance of constructive- 
ness. The model has to be changed in certain particulars to 
suit the case in hand ; as when one Act of Parliament is 
framed upon another. The facility of the construction de- 
pends on having fully present to the mind the model and the 
subject to be shaped according to it. If both the one and the 
other are perfectly familiar, the combination emerges easily 
and almost unconsciously. 

In Oratory, there is a perpetual series of constructions ; it 
is rare to repeat the same form of words. The speaker has 
before him, as disjecta membra, a certain meaning to be ex- 
pressed, and sentences expressing approximations to that 
meaning ; he has also an ideal of cadence, taste, and other 
requisites. Possessing a full mastery of all these elements, he 
puts them together in the required shape, with a rapidity that 
causes astonishment. The repartees of a ready wit are sur- 
prising from the quickness of the combining operation. Still 
more remarkable, in this respect, are the Italian Improvisa- 
tori ; their facility must be due to their abundance of ready 
formed combinations. 

CONSTRUCTIVENESS UNDER FEELING. 

13. It is the nature of certain constructions to satisfy 
some immediate feeling or emotion — as Fear, Love, Anger, 
Beauty, Moral Sentiment. 



EMOTIONAL INFLUENCES. 173 

We are supposed to be strongly occupied with an emotion, 
and to impart its tinge to the constructions of the thoughts. 

Under Compound Association, notice was taken of the 
agency of the feelings in mere reminiscence ; the same agency 
is farther displayed in new constructions. In strong Fear, 
we construct imaginations of danger ; in general elation of 
mind, all our pictures take a sanguine form. The warm 
enthusiastic temperament of Wordsworth and of Shelley pour- 
trays nature in gorgeous hues. All images brought up by 
intellectual resuscitation are shaped and adapted till they 
conform to the reigning emotion. 

The exemplifications of this kind of constructiveness are 
numerous. In literary compositions, we detect the emotional 
nature of the writers, as well as their knowledge and habits 
of thought ; the warm geniality of Shakespeare, the lofty 
pride of Milton, the mildness of Addison, the gloomy scorn of 
Swift. 

Bias, or the influence of the Feelings in truth and false- 
hood, means the shaping of facts and doctrines to suit a sen- 
timent. Properly speaking, this influence is completed by a 
constructive operation, the taking out and putting in of parts 
and particulars till the feeling is conformed to. It is thus 
that many theories of philosophy have been framed to suit the 
dignity of nature, or rather the sentiment of the dignified in 
the mind of the theorizer. 

The Myth is a construction so far governed by feeling as 
to give evidence only of feeling and not of fact. Such are the 
Grecian legends referring to the divine and heroic descent 01 
the several tribes ; and the legends of saints and remarkable 
persons in more recent times. 

The natural craving of the mind for something beyond 
fact and reality, is the motive for ideal and hyperbolical crea- 
tions. The intellectual processes supply the material ; various 
constructions are attempted and rejected, until the feeling is 
complied with. 

14. The Constructions of the Fine Arts generally are 
framed to suit the ^Esthetic Feelings, or Taste, of the 
artist. 

What these feelings are will be shown in detail afterwards. 
They are different from the feelings that guide us in scientific 
and in practical constructions, from none of which can a 
motive (ultimately grounded on feeling) be absent. 

For example, there is no requirement in art more constant 



174 CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

than the satisfying of the feeling of Harmony. Take the case of 
Poetry. The images must harmonize with the sentiments ; 
the characters, besides being consistent with themselves, must 
be placed in suitable scenes and situations ; the language must 
be intrinsically melodious, and also in keeping with the subject- 
matter. The composition has to be modified in submission to 
this all-pervading requirement. The tentatives may be numer- 
ous and protracted, but the elements of success are now ap- 
parent. There should be a command of language for selection. 
The feeling of harmony should be strong and delicate, and 
should be already embodied in numerous familiar examples. 
With abundant material and a decisive sense of the effect, the 
execution is a series of trials, continued till the result fully 
accords with the sensibility of the artist. 

A humourist has in his mind a certain subject, as Knight 
Errantry, and a certain feeling called humour, and with this feel- 
ing he possesses many instances of combinations for gratifying it. 
Out of the career of the Knight Errant, he singles out passages, 
susceptible of being combined into ludicrous images, as for 
example, the extravagances of the pursuit ; he heightens these, 
excludes any sobering or redeeming features, and also contrives 
situations for giving them in their most ludicrous form ; and at last 
produces a construction successfully appealing to the emotion that 
he starts with. 

15. Imagination will be found most characteristically 
exemplified in Fine Art Constructiveness. The principal 
elements of Imagination are (1) Concreteness, (2) Origin- 
ality or Invention, and (3) the presence of an Emotion. 

(1) Imagination has for its objects the concrete, the real or 
the actual, as opposed to abstractions and generalities, which 
are the matter of science, and occasionally of the practical 
arts. The full colouring of reality is supposed to enter into 
our imagination of a scene in nature, or of a transaction in 
history. To imagine the landing of Julius Caesar in Britain, 
is to be impressed with the visible aspect of the scene, in the 
same way — although without the vividness, accuracy, or 
completeness — as an actual spectator would remember it. 
Sensation, Memory, Conception, Imagination, alike deal 
with the fulness of th*e actual world, as opposed to mere 
abstractions. 

(2) Imagination farther points to some Originality, Novelty, 
Inventiveness, or Creativeness, on the part of the mind ima- 
gining, and is not a mere reproduction of previous forms. 
It ranks as a Constructive process, thus rising above both 



IMAGINATION SUPPOSES A PRESENT EMOTION. 175 

memory and conception. The name is occasionally used in 
the sense of Realizing a Description, or Conceiving what is 
represented to us through language ; but this usage is unde- 
sirable, as confounding two very different operations, while 
the inferior exercise is sufficiently denoted by other words. 
The prevailing employment of the term Imagination, is to 
express originality ; by a powerful imagination we mean a 
wide compass of creative effort, as in the highest productions 
of poetry or the other Fine Arts. The word in its best appli- 
cation, is identical with Fine Art Constructiveness, as will 
farther appear under the subsequent head. 

(3) Imagination is subject to some present emotion of the 
mind. This needs explanation. All constructions are for 
some end, which must be a feeling in the last resort. A pump 
is constructed to gratify the feeling of thirst, and other wants, 
all resolvable into feelings. A geometrical diagram is in- 
tended to give some satisfaction immediate or remote. 

The feelings or emotions ruling the constructions of Ima- 
gination are, first, the ^Esthetic Emotions, or those of Fine 
Art. A construction that gratifies these is not included either 
in Science or in Practice. The Paradise Lost is a work of 
Imagination ; Euclid's Elements, and the Chinese Wall, are 
not works of Imagination. When a work of Utility is shaped, 
decorated, or adorned, to gratify aesthetic sensibility, it com- 
bines Imagination with practical constructiveness. 

Secondly, Imagination is allowed to be used for expressing 
the bias given by present emotions to the constructions for 
Truth, or for Utility, as when we distort facts through our 
fears, likings, antipathies, or our artistic feelings. The per- 
verting influence of the feelings, either in matters of know- 
ledge, or in matters of practice, is often described as intruding 
Imagination into the province of Reason, although Reason itself 
must work for ends, and these ends must centre in feelings. 
There are feelings that are the legitimate goal of the reason ; 
and there are others that are not legitimate; and to give way 
to these last (which are either aesthetic feelings, or in close 
alliance with them), is to fall under the sway of Imagination. 

The name Fancy, a corruption of phantasy (from the 
Greek phant asia, which had nearly the meaning of. 'idea' in 
modern times, as opposed to sensation and actuality), is applied 
to those creations that are farthest removed from nature, fact, 
or sober reality. The pictures of Fairy land, and the super- 
natural, are creatures of the fancy. The light, sportive vehi 
of Art, as contrasted with the thoughtful, grave, and serious, 



176 ABSTRACTION — THE ABSTRACT IDEA. 

is called fanciful. ' Comas,' as compared with ' Paradise 
Lost,' is a work of fancy. 

Ideality, or the Ideal, is another name for Imagination. 
It notes more particularly the tendency to soar above the 
limits of the actual, and to combine scenes where our aspira- 
tions and desires may find gratification, if only in idea ; there 
being nothing to satisfy us in the world of reality. 



CHAPTEE V* 

ABSTKACTION— THE ABSTEACT IDEA. 

NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

1. The first stage in Abstraction is to identify and 
compare a number of objects possessing similarity in 
diversity; as stars, mountains, horses, men, pleasures. 
Such objects constitute a Class. 

Until we have been struck with the resemblance of various 
things that also differ, we do not make a beginning in abstrac- 
tion. We feel identity among the stars in spite of their 
variety. There is something common to the state named plea- 
sure, amid much disparity. The things thus identified make 
a class, and the operation is called classifying. 

2. We are able to attend to the points of agreement 
of resembling things, and to neglect the points of differ- 
ence ; as when we think of the light of the heavenly 
bodies, or the roundness of round bodies. This power is 
named Abstraction. 

It is a fact that we can direct our attention, or our 
thoughts, to the points of agreement of bodies that agree. 
We can think of the light of the heavenly bodies, and make 
assertions, and draw inferences respecting it. So we can 
think of the roundness of spherical bodies, and discard the 
consideration of their colour and size. In such an object as the 
full moon, we can concentrate our regards upon its luminous 

* The four preceding chapters complete the systematic view of the 
Intellect ; the three following embrace the leading controversies. 



TO ABSTKACT IS TO CLASSIFY. 177 

character, wherein it agrees with one class of objects ; or upon 
its figure, wherein it agrees with another class of objects. We 
can think of the taste of a strawberry, either as agreeing with 
other tastes, or as agreeing with pleasures generally. 

In the case of concrete objects operating upon different senses, 
we can readily concentrate attention upon the properties of a 
single sense. Notwithstanding the solicitations of a plurality of 
senses at once, we can be absorbed with one ; we can be all eye, 
although also affected with sounds, and all ear, although also 
affected with sights ; the mental attention may flow in one ex- 
clusive channel of sense. We may likewise, to some extent, give 
a dominant attention to the active or to the passive feelings of a 
sense. Thus, in sight, we can be more engaged with the mus- 
cular than with the optical elements, and vice versa; but we 
cannot entirely separate the two. 

The special difficulty of abstraction occurs in the indivisible 
sensations of a sense ; every sound has a plurality of characters, 
intensity, volume, pitch, &c. ; to these we can give a separate 
attention, only by the method described in the next paragraph. 

3. Every Concrete thing falls into as many classes as it 
has attributes ; to refer it to one of these classes, and to 
think of the corresponding attribute, are one mental opera- 
tion. 

When a concrete thing before the view recalls others 
agreeing in a certain point, our attention is awake upon that 
point ; when the moon recalls other luminous bodies, we are 
thinking of its light ; when it recalls other round bodies, we 
are thinking of its roundness. The two operations are not 
different but identical. 

On this supposition, to abstract, or to think of a property 
in the abstract, is to classify under some one head. To ab- 
stract the property of transparency from water, is to recall, at 
the instance of water, window glass, crystal, air, &c. ; to ab- 
stract its liquidity, is to recall milk, vinegar, melted butter, 
mercury, &c. ; to abstract its weight is to bring it into com- 
parison with other kinds of gravitating matter. 

Hence abstraction does not properly consist in the mental 
separation of one property of a thing from the other proper- 
ties — as in thinking of the roundness of the moon apart from 
its luminosity and apparent dimension. Such a separation is 
impracticable ; no one can think of a circle without colour 
and a definite size. All the purposes of the abstract idea are 
served by conceiving a concrete thing in company with others 
resembling it in the attribute in question ; and by affirming 



173 ABSTRACTION — THE ABSTRACT IDEA. 

nothing, of the one concrete, but what is true of all those 

When we think of the moon m comparison with a circle 
drawn on paper, and make that the subject of a proposition, 
we affirm only what is common to these two things ; we re- 
frain from affirming colour, size, or position ; we confine our- 
selves to what is involved in the community of form. 

In abstract reasoning, therefore, we are not so much en- 
gaged with any single thing, as with a class of things. When 
we are discussing government, we commonly have in view a 
number of governments, alternately thought of; if we notice 
in any one government a certain feature, we run over the 
rest in our mind, to see if the same feature is present in all. 
There is no such thing as an idea of government in the ab- 
stract ; there is only possible a comparison of governments in 
the concrete ; the abstraction is the likeness or community of 
the individuals. To be a good abstract reasoner, one should 
possess an ample range of concrete instances. 

4. There are various cases, where we seem to approach 
to a pure Abstract Idea. 

(1) In some instances, we can perform a material separa- 
tion of one property from others. Thus the sweetness of wine 
depends upon its sugar ; the stimulating property is due to 
alcohol ; the bouquet to a certain ether. Now, all these ele- 
ments can be presented in separation. This, however, is not 
abstraction ; every one of the substances is a concrete thing, 
having many other properties besides the one noted. Sugar 
is not mere sweetness ; nor is alcohol a stimulant in the 
abstract. 

(2) In the Lineal Diagrams of Geometry, the substance is 
attenuated to a bare form ; solidity is absent, and no more 
colour is left than is necessary to the outline of the figure. 
Still, the object is concrete. The colour of the line is essential 
to its purpose ; and there is a definite size. When studying 
the circle from a diagram, we must take heed of affirm- 
ing anything that is not common to other round things. 
One way of observing the precaution is to keep before the 
view a plurality of round objects, differing in colour and in 
size; each is then checked by the others. It is the prin- 
ciple of sound generalization to affirm nothing of a class but 
what is true of all its recognized members. 

There may be indistinctness, or a want of vividness, in our 
conceptions of concrete things ; we may fail in realizing the 



VERBAL DEFINITION THE PUREST ABSTRACTION. 179 

richness of colouring and the minute tracery of an object ; we 
may think of the form under a dim, hazy colour, far below 
the original ; still this is not abstraction ; the colour and the 
form are not divorced in the mind. 

(3) The verbal expression of what is common to a class 
appears to give a separate existence to the generality. The 
description, 'A line is length without breadth/ may be called 
an abstract idea of a line. Still, the meaning of the words 
* length* and 'breadth' is inconceivable, without the aid of 
individual concrete things possessing length and breadth. 
Length is a name for one or more things agreeing in the pro- 
perty so called ; and the property is nothing but this agree- 
ment. When, therefore, an abstraction is defined by a verbal 
reference to other abstractions, the effect is to transfer the 
attention from one class of concrete things to some other 
classes of concrete things. ' A triangle is a figure bounded by 
three right lines/ directs us to contemplate the concretes 
implied under 'boundary/ under 'three,' and under 'right 
line/ 

After arriving at the verbal definition, we are able to reason 
of a class by reference to a single individual. When told 
that 'aline is length without breadth,' we are cautioned against 
viewing the line before us, in a diagram, under any other view 
but its length. A certain width is necessary to our seeing or 
conceiving the line, but we take warning from the definition 
not to affirm or include any proposition as to width. We con- 
tract a habitual precaution on this head, which enables us to 
work correctly upon one specimen, instead of needing the 
check of various differing specimens. Thus, while nothing 
can dispense with the presence of a concrete example, it is 
possible to work without a plurality of examples ; and what 
enables us to do so is the restraint imposed by the verbal de- 
finition. 

5. The only generality possessing separate existence is 
the Name ; and the proper force of a general name is to 
signify agreement among the concrete things denoted 
by it. 

When a certain number of things affects the mind with 
similarity in difference, it is of importance to make the fact 
known ; which is done by the use of a common name. The 
things called fires have a community of effect, and the appli- 
cation of one word to all, shows that to be the case ; and 
shows nothing else. Every name that we find applied to a 



180 ABSTRACTION— THE ABSTRACT IDEA. 

plurality of objects is a declaration of agreement (in a given 
manner) among such objects; man, horse, river, just. To 
this view of the nature of general, or abstract ideas, is given 
the designation - Nominalism.' 

6. General Ideas, separated from particulars, have no 
counterpart Reality (as implied in Realism), and no Men- 
tal existence (as affirmed in Conceptualism). 

Because we have a name c round/ or c circle/ signifying 
that certain things impress us alike, although also differing, it 
does not follow that there exists in nature a thing, of pure 
roundness, with no other property conjoined ; a circle, of no 
material, no colour, and no size. All nature's circles are circles 
in the concrete, each one embodied along with other material 
attributes ; a certain colour and size being inseparable from 
the form. This is the denial of Realism. 

Neither can we have even a mental Conception of any pro- 
perty abstracted from all others ; we cannot conceive a circle, 
except of some colour and some size ; we cannot conceive jus- 
tice, except by thinking of just actions. 

7. There is a strong tendency in the mind to ascribe 
separate existence to abstractions ; the motive resides in 
the Feelings, and is favoured by the operation of Language. 

The ascribing of separate existence to abstractions is seen 
more particularly in early philosophy ; as in the Indeterminate 
of Anaximander, the Numbers of Pythagoras, the One and the 
Absolute of the Eleates, the Nous or Mind of Anaxagoras — 
offered as the primal source, or first cause of all existing 
things. To account in some way or other for all that we see 
around us, has been an intense craving of mankind ; and one 
mode of satisfying it is to construct fictitious agencies, such as 
those above named. 

The facility that language affords to Realism depends on 
the circumstance that we are apt to expect every word to have 
a thing corresponding. What is true of concrete names, as 
Sun, Earth, England, we suppose to be true of general names, 
as space, heat, attraction ; we naturally regard these as some- 
thing more than mere comparisons of particulars. 

Time is a pure abstraction ; it has no existence except in 
concrete duration. Things enduring are what we know ; until 
we have become aware of a certain number of these, we have 
no notion of time. Yet, owing to the sublime effect produced 
by the things that have great duration, we contract an asso- 



LANGUAGE FACILITATES REALISM. 181 

ciation with the name for this property in general, and speak 
of Time as if it were a real and separate existence. 

The existence of a supposed External and Independent 
material world, is the crowning instance of an abstraction con- 
verted into a separate entity. (For an account of the contro- 
versy of Nominalism and Realism, see Appendix A.) 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 
EXPERIENCE AND INTUITION. 

1. The question has been raised, with reference to a 
certain small and select portion of our knowledge, whether 
it is derived from Experience like the larger portion, or 
whether it is Intuitive. 

While the great mass of our knowledge is obviously at- 
tained in the course of our experience of the world, it is con- 
tended by some philosophers that certain elements exist in the 
mind at birth ; as, for example, our ideas of Space, Time, and 
Cause ; the Axioms of Mathematics ; the distinction of right 
and wrong ; the ideas of God and Immortality. 

These inborn elements have received many other names ; 
as Innate ideas, Instinctive truths, notions and truths a priori. 
First Principles, Common Sense, primary Beliefs, Transcen- 
dental notions and truths, truths of the Reason. 

2. It is considered that the assigning of a purely 
mental origin to certain ideas, both accounts for what is 
otherwise inexplicable, and confers an Authority, higher 
than experience, upon some important principles, specula- 
tive and practical. 

There are certain peculiarities, it is maintained, belonging 
to such notions and principles as those above specified, that 
mere experience and acquisition cannot account for. 

Again, the ante-natal origin of an idea is believed to give 
it a character of certainty, authority, dignity, such as cannot 
be affirmed of anything obtained in the course of experience. 



182 THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

Thus Kant, in remarking on the notion of Cause, said the 
question respecting it was, — ' Whether this notion were ex- 
cogitated by the mind a priori, and thus possessed an intrinsic 
truth, independent of all experience, and consequently a more 
extensive applicability, one not limited merely to objects of 
actual experience.' A superior and more commanding sweep 
is thus accorded to the notions originating in the mind. 

3. In more explicit terms, the characters ascribed to 
the Intuitive or Innate principles, whereby they transcend, 
or rise above, other principles, are mainly these two — 
Necessity and Universality. 

The necessary, or what must be true, is opposed to the 
contingent, which may or may not be true. That the whole is 
greater than its part, and that every effect must have a cause, 
are said to be necessary ; that unsupported bodies fall to the 
ground is contingent, the fact might have been otherwise. 

Universality follows necessity ; what must be true cannot 
but be universally true. 

4. The first objection to the doctrine of Innate ideas 
and principles, is that it presumes on the finality of some 
one Analysis of the Mind. 

r 

Nothing is to be held innate that can be shown to arise 
from experience and education. Language is not innate ; we 
can account for any one's power of speech by instruction, fol- 
lowing upon the articulate capacity, the sense of hearing, and 
the admitted powers of the intellect. 

To affirm that the notions of Space and Time are intuitive, 
is to affirm that by no possibility shall mental philosophers 
ever be able to account for them by the operation of our per- 
ceptive faculties. Now, although the analysis of the mind at 
any one time should not be able to explain the rise of these 
notions, we are not, for that reason, justified in saying that 
they are never to be explained. 

Although, strictly speaking, we are not entitled to call 
any notion ultimate, and underivable, any more than chemists 
are entitled to call a substance absolutely simple, yet there are 
certain appearances indicating that a fact, whether material 
or mental, is either simple or the reverse. The so-called 
elementary bodies, — oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and the metals, 
are probably simple, because none of the powerful decompos- 
ing agencies now possessed have been able to decompose 
them. A newly- discovered saline body or crystal would be 



INTUITION SUPPOSES ONE ANALYSIS FINAL. 183 

considered compound, because such bodies are susceptible of 

decomposition. 

So in the Mind, it is not probable that we shall ever be 
able to analyze the sensation of Colour ; it is an effect arising 
on the presentation of what is called a visible body, and is not 
resolvable into any other effect. In like manner, the feeling 
of Resistance, or Expended Energy, has all the appearance of 
being a simple fact or experience of the mind. It enters into 
many mental states, but we cannot show that any other men- 
tal state enters into it. On the other hand, there are good 
reasons for thinking that our notion or idea of a pebble is a 
compound, being made up of resistance, touch, visible form, 
and visible colour ; we can identify the presence of all these 
elements in the notion, which is the only proof we have of its 
being a complex and not a simple notion. 

The question then is, may not our notion of Space, or Ex- 
tension, be derived from the Muscular feelings or Sensations, 
co-operating with the Intellectual powers ? Can we identify 
all that there is in the notion with these elements of sensible 
experience, intellectually combined ? Is the analysis of Space 
given in previous chapters (pp. 26, 48, 63), sufficient to ac- 
count for it ? If not, what element is there that cannot be 
identified with Muscular feeling, and Sensation, under the 
intellectual properties of Difference, Agreement and Reten- 
tiveness ? It is now allowed, (by Hamilton, for example,) 
that we have an empirical knowledge of extension ; why may 
not this be the whole ? 

In the final appeal, the sufficiency of an analysis rests upon 
each person's feelings of identity, or difference, in comparing 
the thing to be analyzed with the elements affirmed to enter 
into it. If any man is conscious that his notion of Space con- 
tains nothing but what is supplied by muscular and sensible 
experience, operated on by the intellect, he has all the evi- 
dence that the case admits of. 

Even granting that our present analysis of Space is unable 
to resolve it into elements of post-natal experience, we are 
not, therefore, to hold the matter closed for ever. The power 
of analysis is progressive ; and the most that any one is en- 
titled to say, is, that, as yet, Space has not been resolved — 
that it contains an element that is unique, and not identified 
with any mode of consciousness gained in our experience of 
the world. 

The notion of Time, in the same way, may be held as 
either resolvable into muscular and sensible impressions, 



184 THE OKIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

associated and generalized, or as not so resolvable at present. 
But no one is entitled to affirm it as absolutely simple and 
underived, or that Analysis lias reached the last term, in re- 
spect of this notion. 

In point of fact, the analysis of the feeling of Time seems 
the easiest of all. Every muscular feeling, sensation, and 
emotion, is different according to the degree of its endurance ; 
we discriminate the greater from the less persistence of any 
state of consciousness. This discriminated persistence is the 
attribute of Time. We usually measure Time by some mode 
of our muscular sensibility, as motion ; but we may measure 
it upon any kind of consciousness ; we being differently 
affected by the unequal continuance of every mental condition. 

5. The existence of Innate ideas has an Improbability 
corresponding to the amount of our dependence on experi- 
ence for our knowledge. 

The unquestionable rule being that our knowledge is 
gained through Movement and Sense (Intellectual functions 
co-operating), the burden lies with the advocate of innate 
truth to make good any exceptions to the rule. 

The difficulties in the way of such an attempt are formi- 
dable. We cannot interrogate the new-born child ; we have no 
means of testing its knowledge, until a large store of ideas 
has been acquired. It is different with the powers of action ; 
we can see that a child is able to suck at birth, and to perfom 
various movements and gesticulations. But there is no evi- 
dence that it possesses any kind of knowledge or ideas. 

6. On the theory of Nominalism, innate general ideas 
would involve innate particulars. 

If an abstraction, or generality, be nothing but a host of 
particulars identified and compared, the abstraction is nothing 
without the particulars. Space has meaning in reference to 
extended things, and to nothing besides. If we are born with 
a pre-existing idea of space, we must have pre-existing ideas 
of concrete extended objects, which we compare and classify 
as extended. But the same objects would also be susceptible 
of classifications according to other properties, as colour, so 
that we should also possess innate ideas of colour. 

7. The characteristic of Necessity, rightly understood, 
does not point to an Innate origin, 

A proper necessary truth is one where the subject implies 



NECESSARY TRUTH NOT INNATE. 185 

the predicate ; it is a truth of Implication. What is called 
the Law of Identity — whatever is, is, A is A — is given as an 
example of a necessary truth. That a thing is what it is, we 
may pronounce necessary in the highest sense ; we cannot 
without self-contradiction, say otherwise. Now, there is no 
apparent reason why our ordinary faculties would fail to teach 
us this necessity, or why there must be innate forms provided 
expressly for the purpose. The difficulty would be to avoid 
recognizing such a necessity. Were it admissible that a thing 
could both be and not be, our faculties would be stultified and 
rendered nugatory. That we should abide by a declaration 
once made, is indispensable to all understanding between man 
and man. The law of necessity, in this sense, is not a law of 
things, but an unavoidable accompaniment of the use of 
speech. To deny it, is intellectual suicide. 

Another so-called necessary truth is the Law of Contradic- 
tion. A thing cannot both be and not be. This is merely the 
law of Identity in another form. For example, if it be 
affirmed, * This room is hot ; ' the inference is necessary that it is 
not cold. Such an inference, however, according to the prin- 
ciple of Relativity, is no new fact ; it is the same fact stated 
from the other side ; hot and not- cold express the same thing. 
There is no march of information in these necessary truths ; 
the necessity lies in a thing being exactly what it is ; in an 
affirmation being still true, although perhaps differently ex- 
pressed, or looked at from another side. 

Again, when we say ■ all men are mortal/ the inference is 
necessary, that one man, in particular, or some men, are mor- 
tal. The necessity lies in the fact that the inference merely 
repeats the proposition, only not to the same extent. 'All 
men' is an abbreviation for, this man, the other, and the 
other ; and when we apply the proposition, ' all men are mor- 
tal' to the case of this man, we do nothing but abide by our 
affirmation. When we have maintained a principle in one 
shape, we are understood to be ready to maintain it in any 
other equivalent shape — to be consistent with ourselves. 
This we should be equally inclined to, on any supposition as 
as to the origin of our ideas. 

These necessary truths have, from their very nature, the 
highest possible 'Universality.' That 'whatever is, is ;' that 
1 if all matter gravitate, some matter gravitates,' — are true at 
all times and places, on the same grounds as they are true 
now. The obligation of consistency cannot be dispensed with 
at any conceivable place, or any conceivable time. If nature 



186 THE OEIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

had omitted to supply the supposed innate tendency to recog- 
nize such Universality, we should still recognize it, from a 
feeling of the utter helplessness that its denial would plunge 
us into. 

There is, besides, in the active tendency of the mind, a 
strong disposition to extend to all places and times whatever 
is true in the present (see Belief). So powerful, indeed, is 
this impulse, that it constantly leads us too far, and needs to 
be checked and reduced within limits. We are induced to 
generalize to the utmost whatever we find in our limited 
experience ; we believe that our present feelings will always 
continue. Instead of requiring an intuitive preparation to 
bring us up to the mark of Universality, we are constantly 
urged, through the operation of our active tendencies, to 
over-universality ; and it would have been well for us to have 
been endowed with some innate caution in this respect. 

8. The concessions made by the supporters of Innate 
Principles are almost fatal to the evidence of these prin- 
ciples, and to their value as authority. 

It is allowed that experience is the occasion of our being 
conscious of our intuitive knowledge. We have no idea of 
Space, till we encounter extended things, nor of time, till we 
experience continuing or successive things. The innate element 
is always found in the embrace of an element of sense-per- 
ception. This circumstance casts the greatest uncertainty upon 
the whole speculation, It is scarcely possible to say how much 
is due to experience, and how much to intuition. May not 
the exactness, the purity, the certainty of an innate principle 
be impaired by its alliance with the inferior element of actual 
sensation ? 

9. In the present position of the controversy in ques- 
tion, the chief alleged Innate (speculative) Principles are 
the Axioms of Mathematics, and the Law of Causation. 

The axioms of Mathematics have been variously stated. 
There are good reasons for regarding as axioms, in the proper 
sense of the word, these two. ' Things equal to the same 
thing are equal to one another ; ' and ' The sums of equals 
are equal.' It may be maintained that on these two axioms, 
together with the definitions, the whole fabric of mathematics 
can be raised. 

Neither of these two axioms is necessary, in the sense of 
Implication. When we affirm that 'things equal to the 



AXIOMS OF MATHEMATICS. 187 

same thing are equal to one another/ we do not affirm an 
identical proposition ; the subject is not involved in the pre- 
' dicate. Equality is properly denned as immediate coincidence 
(things that, being applied to one another, coincide, are equal). 
Now, the axiom affirms mediate coincidence, or coincidence 
through some third thing ; and however obvious we may 
suppose the truth affirmed, it is not an identical proposition ; 
it connects together two facts, differing not in language only, 
but in nature ; it declares mediate coincidence to be as good 
as immediate coincidence ; that where we cannot bring two 
things together for direct comparison, we may presume them 
to be equal, if they can be indirectly compared with some 
third thing. There would be no self-contradiction in denying 
this axiom. 

The same line of observation is applicable to the second 
axiom; 'the sums of equals are equal.' It is not an identical 
proposition ; it joins together two distinct properties — equality 
(by coincidence) and equality by the medium of the sum of 
equalities. 

Neither of these axioms is intuitive, any more than neces- 
sary. They both flow from our actual experience ; they are 
abundantly confirmed by repeated trials ; and would, to all 
appearance, be as strongly believed as they are, by virtue of 
the extent and variety of the confirmations of them. Such is 
the view taken by those that impugn innate principles, and con- 
tend for the origin, in experience, of all our ideas whatsoever. 

Some of the axioms of Euclid are necessary, in the strict 
sense. ' Things that, being applied to one another, coincide, 
are equal,' is not an axiom, but a definition — namely, the 
definition of equality. ' The whole is greater than its part,' is 
a corollary from a definition, the definition of whole and 
part; from the very nature of whole and part, the whole 
must be greater than any one part. This is a necessary, 
because an identical, proposition. ' That two straight lines 
cannot enclose a space,' (Kant's stock instance) is, in reality, 
a corollary from the definition of straight lines, and is therefore 
necessary indeed, but is an implicated or identical statement. 
To contradict it, is to contradict the very definition. 

That every Effect not only has, but must have, a Cause, is 
alleged to be a truth at once necessary and intuitive. Ex- 
perience, it is said, cannot show that every change has a 
cause, still less that it must have a cause. 

As the word 'effect' is a correlative term, implying a 
cause, we must substitute the word ' event,' in order to 



188 THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

represent the question fairly; 'Every event must be pre- 
ceded by some other event/ would then be the statement of 
the law. This assertion is obviously not necessary in the- 
sense of Implication ; it is not an identical proposition ; the 
opposite is not self-contradictory. It has all the appearance 
of an induction from facts. 

The upholders of the innate origin of Causation refer to 
another criterion of the necessary and the intuitive — the in- 
conceivability of the opposite. They contend that we cannot 
conceive an absolute beginning ; we are obliged to think of 
every event as growing out of some previous event. Conse- 
quently, they say, there cannot be a creation out of nothing. 

As an assertion of fact, this is easily met by denial. There 
is nothing to prevent us from conceiving an isolated event. 
Any difficulty that we might have, in conceiving something to 
arise out of nothing, is due to our experience being all the 
other way. The more we are instructed in the facts of the 
world, the more are we made aware that every event is 
chained to some other event ; this begets in us a habit of 
conceiving events as so enchained ; if it were not for this habit, 
there would be no serious obstacle to our conceiving the 
opposite state of things. (For the historical view of the 
opinions on the subject of this chapter, see Appendix B.) 



CHAPTER VII. 
OF EXTEENAL perception. 

1. The relations of the Mind to the External, Material, 
or Extended World, give rise to two distinct, although 
connected questions — the Theory of Vision, and the Per- 
ception of the External and Material World. 

Logically, as well as historically, these questions are con- 
nected; in both of them, Berkeley endeavoured to subvert 
what had been the received opinions up to his time. 

THEORY OF VISION. 

2. Berkeley's Theory of Vision professes to account 
for our perceiving Distance by sight. One explanation 



PROPER SENSIBILITY OF THE EYE. 189 

refers the perception to Instinct, the other to Experience, 
or education. 

The instinctive theory prevailed before Berkeley; the 
other view was introduced by him, and has been generally, 
though not universally, received by scientific men. 

We find ourselves able, as far back as we can remember, 
to perceive by sight the comparative distances of objects, and 
to assign their real magnitudes ; whence it would seem that 
the perception comes to us by nature, and not by education. 
In opposition to such an inference, Berkeley held that Distance 
is not seen, but felt by touch, and that we learn to connect 
our tactile experiences with the accompanying visible signs. 
In the same way we judge, by the eye, of the real magnitudes 
of things, after we have both seen and handled them. 

Berkeley's arguments were greatly enfeebled by the im- 
perfect views prevailing in his time, regarding our active or 
muscular sensibility. We shall, in the following summary, 
present the full force of the arguments as they stand now. 

3. The native sensibility of the eye includes (1) Light 
and Colour, and their various shades, (2) Visible Figure, 
and Visible (or retinal) Magnitude. 

The optical sensibility of the eye is for light and colour. 
The muscular sensibility is for visible forms and visible mag- 
nitudes, and their degrees. It is interesting to note that the 
judgment of visible size is the most delicate and accurate of 
all the judgments of the mind. Every accurate standard of 
comparison is in the last resort an appeal to visible magnitude, 
as the balance, the thermometer, &c 

Visible magnitude corresponds to the extent of the image 
upon the retina, and hence is called, by Wheatstone, Retinal 
magnitude. 

4. The visible appearances or signs connected with 
variation of distance from the eye are these : (1) The feel- 
ing of muscular tension in the interior of the eye-ball. 
(2) The feeling of convergence or divergence of the two 
eyes. (3) The varying dissimilarity of the pictures pre- 
sented to the two eyes. (4) The greater • clearness of near 
objects, and the haziness of distant. (5) The variation of 
retinal magnitude. 

(1) It has been seen (Sight) that to adjust the eye to a 
near object (a few inches), there is a muscular strain in the 
eye-ball. 



190 THEORY OF VISION. 

(2) Another sign of nearness is the convergence of the 
two eyes, which is relaxed more and more as the object is re- 
moved ; at great distances the eyes being parallel. 

(3) For near distances, the pictures seen by the two eyes 
are dissimilar ; as the distance increases, they are less so, and 
at great distances they are exactly similar. Such identity is, 
therefore, a sign of great distance. 

(4) Incidental to distance, when very great, is a certain 
haziness, which is so far a constant fact, that painters make 
use of it in their perspective. 

(5) When an object retreats from the eye, its visible or 
retinal magnitude steadily diminishes, and we are very sensi- 
tive to this diminution. If one human figure is seen at six 
feet distance, and another at twelve, nearly behind the first ; 
the one has four times the retinal magnitude of the other ; 
and this disparity strikes the mind more forcibly, perhaps, 
than all the other signs put together. 

5. The meaning, or import, of Distance, is something 
beyond the experience of the eye. 

The meaning of distance may be illustrated thus. If a 
ball is held before the eyes, first at six inches, and then at 
twelve, the optical changes will be as above described. But 
conjoined with visible changes is a definite movement of the 
arm, of which we are conscious, This introduces a new sen- 
sibility into the case ; and when we say that the ball has been 
removed to the greater distance, one (and the more important) 
meaning of the fact is, that the hand and arm would have to 
be moved to carry it to its new position, or to touch it there. 

Such is an example of the meaning of distance for near 
objects. Another measure is introduced for distant objects. 
To compare six feet with twelve feet, we must move the 
whole body in locomotion, and estimate, from our muscular 
sensibility, the difference between one locomotive exercise 
and another. To come up to one object, we move two paces, 
to another four, and so on. To change one visible appear- 
ance, or retinal magnitude, to another, we put forth a definite 
locomotion, which is not merely our measure or estimate 
practically of the interval between the two appearances, but 
the sole meaning or import of distance. If any one denies 
this, let him say what meaning is left, if all that is signified 
by locomotion of the whole body, or any part of it, be wholly 
withdrawn. 

But if Distance has no meaning apart from the move* 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR ASSOCIATING DISTANCE. 191 

ments of other organs than the eye, the question then is, has 
nature gifted ns at birth with the power of learning through 
one sense the experience of another sense ? Do we smell 
sounds, or hear touches, or taste colours ? Such conjunctions 
may not be impossible, but they are unusual ; and the 
burden of proof lies upon the affirmer. 

6. The experience of early infancy and childhood is 
incessantly forming the Associations between the visible 
signs of distance and the movements that constitute the 
meaning of distance (together with real magnitude). 

The infant in the nurse's arms is perpetually experiencing 
the visible changes consequent on its being carried about ; and 
as soon as it is aware of the fact of its being moved or carried 
(an unavoidable muscular consciousness), it connects this 
experience with the startling changes of visible magnitude in 
the things before its eyes. The visible appearance of the 
wall of a room is doubled, tripled, or quadrupled, while the 
child is carried from one end of the room to another. There 
would be no possibility of avoiding the association of the 
two facts. After a time, the momentary visible magnitude of 
the familiar wall would be connected with the amount of 
locomotion necessary to increase the magnitude to its maximum, 
or reduce it to its minimum ; which would be a perception of 
distance begun. When the child attains to its own powers of 
locomotion, experiments are greatly increased in number and 
in variety; in a single day, the child might cross a room 
several scores of times, and every time the optical changes 
would be felt in connexion with its movements. A few 
weeks or months of this experience could not but engrain a 
vast number of associations of visible change with degrees of 
locomotion. The child would at the same time be handling 
things, taking their measures with the arms ; walking round 
tables and chairs, estimating their real magnitudes by experi- 
mental muscular exertions, and connecting these real magni- 
tudes with optical adjustments and changes. There are thus 
abundant opportunities of attaining the required connexions 
of real distances and real sizes with visible signs ; every 
instant of the active life of the child is furnishing additional 
confirmations ; and the final result is likely to be a firm 
and indissoluble alliance between visible signs and the multi- 
farious locomotive and other experience accompanying them. 

7. According to the experiments of Wheatstone, the 
order of dependence among our visual perceptions is as 



1 1 J2 THEORY OF VISION. 

follows :— The Inclination of the Axes of the eyes, in com- 
pany with a given Retinal picture, suggests the magnitude 
fird ; and from the true magnitude thus known and the 
retinal magnitude, we infer the distance. 

It was the prevalent opinion, that the feeling of the degree 
of convergence of the axes at once suggests distance ; and that 
the distance thus suggested, taken along with the visible or 
retinal magnitude, gives the true magnitude. Wheatstone, on 
the contrary, concludes from his experiments that the first 
suggestion made is real magnitude (as experienced by touch 
and locomotion), and that, by combining this with the visible 
magnitude, the suggestion of distance follows. A block of 
stone is first judged to be, in size, a foot in the side ; we then 
know from its visible or retinal size, whether the distance be 
ten feet, or fifty ; there being, as already remarked, no more 
delicate means of discrimination than by differences of retinal 
size. 

These experiments are important, as showing that Distance 
is not even the first inference, but the last, and implicates with 
it a prior inference of true Magnitude ; all which increases the 
difficulty of supposing the perception of distance to be in- 
stinctive. 

8. The perception of Distance is farther illustrated by 
the Stereoscope. 

This great invention of Wheatstone's has given an impetus 
to the study of what is termed Binocular vision, or the con- 
currence of the two eyes in the single picture. The con- 
nexion of solid effect, — in other words, the perception of dis- 
tance, — with double vision, is rendered very striking. It is 
shown, that the dissimilarity of the two pictures is a sign of 
distance, bound up in inseparable association with the fact. 

To account for our seeing an object single with two eyes, 
the following considerations are offered. 

(1) The picture of the object is received by one eye; the 
other merely extending its compass, and giving the dissimi- 
larity of aspect that is a sign of the distance. It is a mistake 
in fact, to suppose that each eye sees a full and entire picture, 
independent of the other ; one eye takes the lead and receives 
the picture, the other supplying the additions. Supposing the 
right eye to be the leader, if we shut that eye, the picture 
will be observed to shift its ground to the right ; in fact, an 
entirely new picture is now formed by the left eye alone, — a 



IN VISION THE PAST UNITES WITH THE PRESENT. 193 

picture that is never allowed to be formed when both eyes are 
open. It is as in Tonch, where we may employ both hands, 
but we attend chiefly to one, using the other as an extension 
of the contact. 

(2) Equally pertinent 'is the consideration that, in vision, 
what the mind conceives is, not the optical effect actually 
presented at the moment, but a compound or accumulated effect, 
the result of all our past experience of vision in connexion 
with the various movements that enable us to estimate real 
size and distance. As in reading, our mental picture is not 
confined to a visible word, but involves the feeling of articula- 
tion and the melody on the ear, together with the suggested 
meanings, — so, in vision, the mind supplies far more than the 
sense receives. In looking at an extended prospect, we see 
distinctly only the part in the line of the eye ; all the rest is 
to the vision indistinct and vague. Nevertheless, the mind 
supplies from memory a clear picture of the other parts. 
Also, in looking down a vista, the adjustment of the eyes per- 
mits only one portion to be clearly seen, the rest being neces- 
sarily confused ; but the mind easily gives the correct picture 
throughout, so that the indistinctness demonstrably attaching 
to the optical image does not cloud the mental perception. 

9. It is admitted by the opponents of Berkeley, that 
the instinctive perception must be aided by certain acquire- 
ments or associations. 

The concession is made that, • although the eye possessed 
the most perfect power of perceiving distance, it could not 
possibly convey an idea of the amount of walking necessary to 
pass over it.' This, as Mr. J. S. Mill remarks, is to surrender 
the whole question. The author of the remark parries the 
conclusion, by saying that there is no more in it than the 
difference between hearing musical tones and the power of 
distinguishing them accurately. But the perception of any 
quality must involve the perception of its degree ; we could 
not be said to perceive weight, unless we could distinguish 
between a greater and a less ; very nice shades of difference 
might not be felt without education ; but not to feel any 
amount of difference is not to feel at all. The loose remark 
is made, ' we first roughly estimate the difference by the eye — 
this we correct by measurement.' But a rough estimate is 
still an estimate of more or less, a sense of difference. 

The question still returns, What is the meaning or import 
of Distance ? One meaning of vital importance practically, 
13 



194 THEOKY OF VISION. 

is the greater or less locomotion or other movement required 
to traverse it. Subtract that meaning, which is said by all 
not to be instinctive, and what meaning remains ? Until the 
two contending parties agree upon this, it is vain to argue the 
question. Nevertheless, we shall now present a summary of 
the chief arguments on the side of instinctive perception. 

10. I. — In perceiving distance, we are not conscious of 
tactual feelings or locomotive reminiscences ; what we see is 
a visible quality, and nothing more. 

If distance is merely the suggestion of touch, &c., we ought to 
be conscious of a tactile state, a state of locomotive, or other mus- 
cular, effort. It is denied that we have any such consciousness. 
We never, it is said, see resistance or hardness, which are the 
real tactile qualities. 

The supporters of Berkeley meet this allegation by saying, 
that we are conscious of associated qualities in being conscious of 
distance. Even as to the more strictly tactile properties of resist- 
ance and hardness, we are distinctly conscious of these in looking 
at a stone wall ; we do not see them in the eye, but their visible 
signs so strongly suggest them, that they are inseparable from the 
act of vision. 

Mr. Mill, remarking on his own experience, says, that in judg- 
ing the distance of an object, the idea suggested to his mind ' is 
commonly that of the length of time, or the quantity of motion, 
that would be requisite for reaching to the object if near, or 
walking up to it if at a distance.' 

It thus appears that opposite allegations can be made as to the 
interpretation of individual consciousness, which renders this 
argument indecisive on either side ; as in all assertions referring 
to the subjective world, each one must judge for themselves. 

11. II. — The early experience or education of children is 
inadequate to produce the requisite strength of association. 

It is affirmed that the opportunities are wanting for uniting 
the visual signs with the tactual and other effects ; that the con- 
stant association requisite does not take place ; that the visible 
experience is sufficiently frequent, but the tactual and locomotive 
experience rare. i We see a house at the distance of forty yards, 
a mountain at ten miles ; but how often do we estimate the dis- 
tance by any other sense ?' For every separate adjustment of the 
eye, corresponding to all grades of distance, we ought to have 
made innumerable experiments of touch or locomotion. 

But to all this it is replied, first, that the infant is making the 
experimental connexions as often as it is moved from place to 
place, no matter how. And, secondly, it being admitted that we 
originally see distance only in the * rough,' and without discrimi- 
nation of degree, and have to learn by experience all the separate 
stages, it seems no great additional demand on our education to 



OBJECTIONS TO BERKELEY'S THEORY. 195 

acquire the rough estimate as well, implying as it does so much 
less than the numerous associations that distinguish degrees. 

It is farther urged against the doctrine of acquirement, that 
the associated things should be able to reproduce one another re- 
ciprocally. Tactual and locomotive perceptions ought to suggest 
their visual signs as efficiently as the inverse operation ; that is, 
in putting forth our hand in the dark to touch a thing, there 
ought to flash upon us the visible remembrance of its distance ; 
which, it is alleged, is not the case. So, walking a few steps in 
the dark should give us the visual sensations corresponding to the 
interval passed over. 

It may be replied, that we have in both cases a visual estimate 
of distance, just as accurate as our estimate of movement or loco- 
motion from visible signs. When we walk six paces in the dark, 
retreating from a wall, we can then, and do, think of the visual 
distance of the wall at six yards ; every pace that we take sug- 
gests the retreating figure of the wall ; and if our estimate is not 
perfectly accurate, neither is our estimate of real distance, judged 
by its signs, always accurate. 

12. III. — Observations made upon persons born blind, and 
after a lapse of years made to see, are affirmed to be in favour 
of the instinctive origin of the perceptions. 

The first and best known of these cases, a youth couched by 
Cheselden [Phil. Trans. 1728), has, until lately, been considered 
as confirmatory of Berkeley's doctrine. But the recent opponents 
of Berkeley have endeavoured to give it a different turn, as well 
as to explain the other cases in their view. It is admitted, how- 
ever, that the observers were not sufficiently aware of the points 
to be noted in order to settle this question. Two patients are 
quoted by Mr. Bailey, who could distinguish by the unassisted eye 
whether an object was brought nearer or carried farther from 
them. But in neither case, were the circumstances of the experi- 
ment such as to prove the fact. 

Cheselden's patient said that ' all objects seemed to touch his 
eyes,' which is not compatible with his seeing things at a distance, 
and some things farther off than others. A similar remark was 
made by other patients, and although laborious attempts are 
made to explain away the effect of the observation (see Abbot's 
* Sight and Touch,' chap, x.), the necessity of such attempts is fatal 
to the decisiveness of such cases as proofs of intuitive perception. 

13. IV. — The case of the lower animals is adduced as pre- 
senting an instinct such as is contended for, which would at 
least show that the fact is one within the compass of nature. 

The power of many animals to direct their movements, almost 
immediately after birth, seems established by a large mass of 
concurrent observations. For example, ' the moment the chicken 
has broken the shell, it will dart at and catch a spider. Sir 
Joseph Banks said he had seen a chicken catch at a fly whilst the 



196 THEORY OF VISION. 

shell stuck in its tail.' Many similar facts have been related over 
and over again by veracious witnesses. Such powers obviously 
imply an intuitive measure of distance, and a farther instinctive 
power of directing the movements in exact accordance therewith. 
On these facts, it is open to the adherents of Berkeley's theory to 
make the following comments. 

(1) There does not exist a body of careful and adequate obser- 
vations upon the early movements of animals. It is not enough 
that even a competent observer makes an occasional observation 
of this nature; it is essential that a course of many hundred 
observations should be made on each separate species, varying the 
circumstances, in every possible way, so as to ascertain the usual 
order of proceeding in the species generally, and all the condi- 
tions and limitations of the aptitudes alleged. We know enough 
to pronounce such facts as the above, respecting the chick, to be 
extreme and exceptional instances ; usually a certain time (two or 
three days) elapses ere the chick can peck at seeds of corn ; and 
the nature of its operations during that interval, as well as the 
character of the first attempts, should receive the most careful 
scrutiny by different observers. There is satisfactory evidence 
that these animals do possess, at a remarkably early period, a 
power of precise adjustment of their moving organs to external 
objects ; but it is not proved that this power is complete at the 
instant of birth in any single species. 

(2) As regards the bearing upon the Theory of Vision in man, 
these observations have the fatal weakness of proving too much. 
They prove that animals have not only the power of seeing dis- 
tance, but the power of appreciating its exact amount, and the 
still farther power of graduating their own movements in exact 
correspondence with the distance measured. They include both the 
gift that we are alleged to have by nature, and two other apti- 
tudes that in us are acquired. This enormous disparity reduces 
the force of the analogy to almost nothing. A natural endow- 
ment that goes the length of a precise muscular adjustment 
adapted to each varying distance, so far transcends the utmost 
that can be affirmed of our primitive stock of visual perceptions, 
as to amount to a new and distinct attribute, presupposing a 
totally different organization. 

14. V.— The observations on infants are held as favouring 
the instinctive perception of distance. 

It is not alleged that infants at birth exhibit any symptoms of 
this knowledge, like the animals just quoted, but that they show 
it before they have developed the powers of touch and locomotion 
requisite for actual distances. The infant is said to have the 
power of bringing its hand accurately to its mouth about the 
eleventh week, while the power of touching and handling has 
made very little progress at the end of six months. Yet, by this 
time, the child knows the difference between a friend and a 
stranger, and throws itself out in the direction of the one, and 



DOCTRINE OF HEREDITARY EXPERIENCE. 197 

turns away from the other; it also knows when it is moved 
towards the object it likes, and makes no attempt to seize a thing 
until it is brought quite close. Of course, locomotion has not yet 
begun. 

We have given by anticipation the only answer to these facts, sup- 
posing them accurately stated (which is doubtful). The earliest as- 
sociations of visible appearances with actual trials of distance and 
real magnitude are not made by the hand, or by the child's own 
locomotion, but by its movements as carried from place to place ; 
and until some one can show that it can have no adequate conscious- 
ness of these movements, at the same time that it is conscious 
of the changes of the retinal magnitude of the things about 
it, the Berkleian theory is not affected by the facts in question. 

15. It has been suggested, as a third alternative in this 
dispute, that there may be a hereditary or transmitted ex- 
perience of the connexion between the visible signs and the 
locomotive measure of distance. 

This view belongs to what is called the Development hypo- 
thesis. If there be such a thing as the transmission of acquired 
powers to posterity, it may operate in the present instance. 
Facts are adduced (by Darwin, Spencer, and others) to show that 
this transmission is possible, although the utmost extent of it 
would appear to be but small for one or a few generations. Still, 
it is argued that, if there be any experience likely to impress 
itself on the organization permanently, it would be an experience 
so incessant as the connexion of the visible signs with the loco- 
motive estimate of distance. 

It may be remarked, with reference to this hypothesis, that, 
whatever be the case with certain of the lower animals, the heredi- 
tary transmission has not operated to confer the instinct upon 
man (unless the opposition to Berkeley be successful, which is 
not admitted). Hereditary experience may have predisposed 
the nervous system to fall in more rapidly into the connexions 
required. This is what no Berkeleian is in a position to deny, 
while it might ease the difficulty suggested by the great strength 
and maturity of the acquisitions at the earliest period of our 
recollections. 

PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

1. All Perception or Knowledge implies mind. 

To perceive is an act of mind ; whatever we may sup- 
pose the thing perceived to be, we cannot abstract it from 
the percipient mind. To perceive a tree is a mental act ; 
the tree is known as perceived, and not in any other way. 
There is no such thing known as a tree wholly detached from 
perception ; and we can speak only of what we know. 



198 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

2. The Perception of Matter points to a fundamental 
distinction in our experience. We are in one condition, 
or attitude, of mind when surveying a tree or a mountain, 
and in a totally different condition or attitude when 
luxuriating in warmth, or when suffering from toothache. 

The difference here indicated is the greatest contrast 
within our experience. It is expressed by Matter and Mind (in 
a narrow sense), External and Internal, Object and Subject. 

3. The distinction between the attitude of material 
perception and the subjective consciousness has been com- 
monly stated, by supposing a material world, in the first 
instance, detached from perception, and, afterwards, coming 
into perception, by operating upon the mind. This view 
involves a contradiction. 

The prevailing doctrine is that a tree is something in itself 
apart from all perception ; that, by its luminous emanations, it 
impresses our mind and is then perceived; the perception 
being an effect, and the unperceived tree the cause. But the 
tree is known only through perception ; what it may be 
anterior to, or independent of, perception, we cannot tell ; we 
can think of it as perceived, but not as unperceived. There 
is a manifest contradiction in the supposition ; we are required 
at the same moment to perceive the thing and not to perceive 
it. We know the touch of iron, but we cannot know the 
touch apart from the touch. 

4. Assuming the Perception of Matter to be a fact 
that cannot be disengaged from the mind, we may analyze 
the distinction between it and the modes of subjective 
consciousness, into three main particulars, 

I. — The perception of Matter, or the Object conscious- 
ness, is connected with the putting forth of Muscular 
Energy, as opposed to Passive Feeling. 

The fundamental properties of the material or object world 
are Force or Resistance, and Extension, — the Mechanical and 
the Mathematical properties. These have sometimes been 
called the primary qualities of matter. The modes of Exten- 
sion are called, by Hamilton, primary qualities, and the modes 
of Resistance or Force, secnudQ-primarij . 

Now, it has been formerly seen (muscular feelings) that, 
in experiencing resistance, and in perceiving extension, our 
moving energies are called into play. The exertion of our 



PERCEPTION OF MATTER CONNECTED WITH ENERGY. 199 

own muscular power is the fact constituting the property 
called resistance. Of matter as independent of our feeling 
of resistance, we can have no conception ; the rising up of 
this feeling within us amounts to everything that we mean by 
resisting matter. We are not at liberty to say, without in- 
curring contradiction, that our feeling of expended energy is 
one thing, and a resisting material world another and a differ- 
ent thing ; that other and different thing is by us wholly un- 
thinkable. 

On the other hand, in purely passive feeling, as in those 
of our sensations that do not call forth our muscular energies, 
we are not perceiving matter, we are in a state of subject con- 
sciousness. The feeling of warmth, as in the bath, is an 
example. If we deliver ourselves wholly to the pleasure of 
the warmth, we are in a truly subject attitude, we are in 
noways cognizant of a material world. All our senses may 
yield similar experiences, if we resign ourselves to their purely 
sensible or passive side ; if we are absorbed with a relish 
without moving the masticating organs, or with an odour, 
without snuffing it, or moving up to it. In pure soft touch, 
we approach to the subject attitude ; but there are few exer- 
cises of touch entirely separated from muscular effect. On 
the same conditions, sounds might be a purely subject 
experience. Lastly, it is just possible, although difficult, 
to make light a subject experience ; mere formless radiance 
would be an approach to it; the recognition of form or 
boundary introduces an object property, embodied in ocular 
movements. 

The qualities of matter affecting our senses on their purely 
passive side — their special or characteristic sensibility — are 
called the secondary qualities of matter — Taste, Odour, Touch 
proper (soft touch, &c), Sound, and Colour. 

The distinction of Primary and Secondary qualities is made 
chiefly with reference to Perception. The primary, on the com- 
mon theory, are those of pure and independent matter, matter 
per se; the secondary are tinged or coloured by the percipient 
mind. 

We have thus, in putting forth energy, a mode of con- 
sciousness belonging to the object side ; and in passive feel- 
ing, a mode of consciousness belonging to the subject side. 

5. II. — Our object experience farther consists of the 
uniform connexion of Definite Feelings with Definite 
Energies. 



200 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

The effect that we call the interior of a room is, in the 
final analysis, a regnlar series of feelings of sense, related to 
definite muscular energies. A movement, one pace forward, 
makes a distinct and definite change in the ocular impressions ; 
a step backwards exactly restores the previous impression. 
A movement to one side gives rise to another definite change, 
and so on. The coincidences are perfectly uniform in their 
occurrence. Again, in moving down a street, we undergo a 
series of sensible feelings, in accordance with our movements ; 
we reverse the movements, and encounter the feelings in the 
reverse order. We repeat the experiment, with the same 
results. All our so-called sensations are in this way related 
to movements. Our sensations of light vary with our move- 
ments, and (allowance being made for other known changes) 
always in the same way with the same amount of movement. 
We open the eye and light is felt; we close it, and light 
ceases. This gives to light its object character. Sound, by 
itself, would be purely subjective ; but a sound steadily in- 
creasing with one movement, and steadily decreasing with 
another, is treated as objective. 

On the other hand, what, in opposition to sensations, we 
call, the flow of ideas, — the truly mental or subjective life — 
has no connexion with our movements. We may remain still 
and think of the different views of a room, of a street, of a pros- 
pect, in any order. This is a total contrast to the other ex- 
perience ; mankind are justified in using very decided language 
to express so great a difference ; they are not, however, 
justified in using language to affirm that, in the object percep- 
tion, there are unperceived existences giving the cue to our 
actual perceptions. 

Thus, then, what we call Sensation, Actuality, Objectivity, 
is an unlimited series of associations of definite movements 
with definite feelings ; the Idea, Ideality, Subjectivity, is a 
flow of feelings without dependence on muscular or active 
energy. In this property also, we see that it is still our ener- 
getic or active side that constitutes the basis of the object 
experience, the object consciousness. 

6. Our own body is a part of our Object experience. 

It is in our own body that Object and Subject come to- 
gether in that intimate alliance known as the union of mind 
and body. Still, the body is object to the mind, and is viewed 
in the same manner as other parts of the objective aggregate. 

When we speak of an external world, the comparison is 



THE OBJECT COMMON TO ALL. 201 

strict only in comparing our body with the things that sur- 
round it. External and Internal are not strictly appli- 
cable to express the totality of the object as compared with 
the totality of the subject. The terms 'alliance,' 'union,' 
' association/ are less unsuitable ; they do not commit us to 
the impropriety of specifically locating the Unextended. 

7. III. — In regard to the Object properties, all minds 
are affected alike : in regard to the Subject properties, 
there is no constant agreement. 

By communicating with others, we find that, in regard to 
the feelings that definitely vary with definite energies, what 
happens to one happens to all. Two persons walking down 
the same street, have the same changes of sensation, at each 
step. Whoever performs the definite series of movements 
called ascending a mountain, will be conscious of the same 
sensitive changes, the same series of ocular effects. Other 
persons as well as we experience light in the act of opening 
the eyes, in definite circumstances. 

On the other hand, although on the same mountain top the 
optical experience of all beholders is the same, they may differ 
in many other feelings, — in the sense of fatigue, in the sense 
of hunger, in the aesthetic enjoyment. They will also differ 
in the flow and succession of their ideas ; no two will have the 
same train of thoughts. These are subjective elements of the 
mind. For although they also are affected by movements, and 
are under a strict law of succession of their own, yet there is 
no exact uniformity as to the time, degree, and manner of 
their showing themselves. Now, the object world is limited 
to points of strict and rigorous community, where the effect 
is the same to all minds. 

This rigorous uniformity belongs only to the so-called 
primary qualities, Extension and Resistance ; visible form 
and visible magnitude, tangible form and tangible magnitude, 
and degrees of force or resistance, are the points where beings 
are constituted alike. They are not constituted strictly alike 
as regards Colour (witness Colour-blindness), Sound, Touch 
proper, Smell, Taste, still less Organic Sensation. They are 
constituted, however, very nearly alike in the higher senses ; 
there is little difference in regard to colour ; hence the popular 
notion of the independent external world is a coloured world, 
but it ought to be only an Extended, Shaped, and Resisting 
world. Colour is a secondary quality, varied by the varieties 
of the subject ; and should therefore be withdrawn from rigorous 



202 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

object existence, as not being strictly common to all. Still 
we join it to the object properties, by reason of its being 
definitely varied with definite movements in each person, 
although it may not be precisely the same experience in all 
persons. 

8. When, in order to distinguish what is common to 
all from what is special to each, we ascribe separate and 
independent existence to the common element, the Object, 
we not only forget that the object qualities are still modes 
of conscious experience, but are guilty besides of con- 
verting an abstraction into reality — the error of Eealism. 

In the perception of Extension, Shape, Kesistance, and to 
a certain extent Colour, we all agree ; and it is important to 
express the agreement. But it does not follow, that the 
agreeing properties subsist apart, and in isolation : any more 
than that roundness exists as a separate entity, or detached 
from all round things. We are conscious of object qualities 
only in their union with subject qualities ; we may, by the 
exercise called Abstraction, think of the object qualities by 
themselves, but we cannot thereby confer upon them an 
existence aloof from all subject qualities. 

THEORIES OF THE MATERIAL WORLD. 

Berkeley. The so-called Ideal Theory of Berkeley is given 
in his work entitled ' The Principles of Human Knowledge,' and 
is farther defended and elucidated in ( Three Dialogues between 
Hylas and Philonous.' 

The Introduction to the ' Principles of Human Knowledge ' is 
occupied with an onslaught on the doctrine of Abstract Ideas. 
The author felt that the common theory of the material world is 
a remnant of Kealism, and incompatible with thorough-going 
Nominalism. 

The objects of human knowledge, he goes on to say, are ideas 
of one or other of these three classes : — (1) Ideas actually imprinted 
on the senses, (2) ideas arrived at by attending to the passions and 
operations of the mind — as pleasure, pain, sweetness, love, con- 
science, &c, and (3) ideas formed by memory or by imagination 
reviving and combining the two other classes. 

It is necessary to remark on this peculiar use of the word 
* idea,' to express what we commonly call ' sensations' and 
'things,' that Berkeley does not thereby mean to assimilate the 
perception of a tree to the idea that we form of a tree when re- 
membered ; he only intends to say that sensation, or perception, 
is a mental fact or product, a phase or aspect of mind, and 
cannot have any existence apart from mind. He has, however, 



BERKELEY. 203 

taken a word, hitherto employed only in the subject sphere, and 
generalized it to express both the object and the subject, marking 
the difference by specific designations, as if we should say, object 
ideas (sensations, things, objects), and subject ideas (feelings, pas- 
sions, thoughts, &c). 

Sight, he continues, gives ideas of colour ; touch gives hard- 
ness and softness ; smelling furnishes odours. Moreover, there 
may be concurrences of these ; a certain colour, taste, smell, figure, 
may go together, and have one name, apple. 

Besides these three kinds of ideas, countless in their detail, 
there is a something that knows or perceives them, and exercises 
the various functions called, willing, imagining, remembering. 
This is mind, spirit, soul, myself ; a something different from the 
ideas that constitute knowledge. 

Now, with regard to ideas of the second and third classes, — 
ideas of our thoughts and passions, and ideas of memory and 
imagination — it is allowed by everybody that these exist only in the 
mind. 

To Berkeley, it is equally evident that ideas of the first class — 
sensations of the senses — cannot exist otherwise than in a mind 
perceiving them. The table I write on exists ; that is, I see or 
feel it ; if I were out of my study, I should say it existed, mean- 
ing if I return I shall perceive it ; or if any other persons are now 
there, they will perceive it. In short, with regard to outward 
things generally, they exist as perceived ; the esse is percipi. 

To suppose otherwise (the vulgar opinion), is a contradiction. 
Sensible objects are the things perceived by sense ; but whatever 
we perceive is our own ideas or sensations ; it is self-contradictory 
to say that anything exists unperceived. It is only a nice ab- 
straction that enables us to suppose things unperceived; the 
things we see and feel are so many sensations, notions, ideas, im- 
pressions of sense, and it is no more possible to divide them from 
the act of perception, than to divide a thing from itself. The 
choir of heaven, the furniture of the earth, all the things that 
compose the mighty frame of the world, have no existence with- 
out a mind ; they subsist either in the minds of created spirits, or, 
failing these, in the mind of some eternal spirit. There is no 
other substance but spirit, that which perceives ; it is a perceiving 
substance that alone furnishes the substratum of colour, figure, 
and other sensible qualities. 

He next supposes some one to allege, that although ideas are 
in the mind, yet something like them, something that they are 
copies of, may exist in an unthinking substance. The reply is, an 
idea is like only to an idea. Either the supposed originals are 
perceived, and then they are only ideas ; or they are not perceived, 
in which case, colour is declared to resemble something invisible. 

The distinction between Primary and Secondary Qualities is 
of no avail. Extension, Figure, and Motion are still ideas of the 
mind ; neither they nor their archetypes can exist in an unperceiv- 
ing substance. It being admitted that the secondary qualities 



204 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

exist in the mind alone, and yet are inseparably united with the 
primary qualities, (extension is always coloured), it follows that 
these primary qualities can have no separate existence. Again, 
the properties called great and small, slow and swift, are entirely 
relative ; they change with the position of the perceiving organs. 
Therefore the absolute, and independent extension, must neither 
be great nor small, which would amount to nothing. So the 
qualities Number and Unity are creatures of the mind. In short, 
whatever goes to prove that tastes and colours exist only in the 
mind, proves the same as to Extension, Figure, and Motion. 

He then examines the received opinion that extension is a 
mode of the substratum matter, and finds the expression devoid of 
meaning. 

Granting the possibility of solid, figured, movable substances, 
existing without the mind, how can we ever know this ? Is it 
not possible that we might be affected with all the ideas we have 
now, though no bodies exist without that resemble them ? More- 
over, the assumed existence of such bodies is no help in explaining 
the rise of our ideas, seeing that we are unable to comprehend how 
body can act on spirit. In short, if there were external bodies, it 
is impossible that we should know it ; and if there were not, we 
should still have the same reason for believing it. 

He points out (although with insufficient Psychology) the 
difference between ideas of sensation, and ideas of reflection or 
memory : the ideas of sense do not depend on our will (we open 
our eyes and cannot resist the consequences). Moreover, these 
ideas of sense are more strong, lively, and distinct, than the 
others ; they have a steadiness, order, and coherence, unlike the 
ideas influenced by our own will ; the set rules of their coherence 
constitute the laws of nature, the knowledge of which is our 
practical foresight. 

To the objection that the reality of things is abolished or re- 
moved by his theory, he merely repeats his main position in varied 
terms. There are spiritual substances or minds having the power 
of exciting ideas in themselves at pleasure ; but ideas so arising 
are faint, weak, and unsteady. There is another class of ideas, 
those perceived by sense ; which are impressed according to cer- 
tain rules or laws of nature; and to them, the idea of reality is 
attached in a more peculiar meaning. He, therefore, removes 
no reality as understood by the vulgar, but only a philosophic 
fiction. 

It may seem very harsh, he further remarks, to say that we 
eat and drink and are clothed by ideas. But so is any deviation 
from familiar language. Underneath the language is a question 
of fact. To use the terms ' object of sense,' ' thing,' is to assume 
the error he is combating. 

He then notices other objections ; sach as the supposed per- 
petual annihilation and creation involved in the theory ; the no- 
tion, that to regard extension as a purely mental fact is to make 
the mind extended ; the consent of mankind to the view he is 



HUME. 205 

opposing ; the superfluity of the curious organization of plants 
and animals on his system, &c. His answers bring out nothing 
new. He repeats his attacks on abstract ideas, in the leading in- 
stances of Time, Space, and Motion ; and combats the doctrine of 
mathematicians as to the Infinite Divisibility of lines. 

He is strenuous in maintaining the existence of spirit apart 
from ideas ; spirit is the support and substratum of ideas, and 
cannot be itself an idea. The supposition that spirit can be 
known after the manner of an idea, or sensation, is a root of 
scepticism. He considers the Deity the immediate cause of all 
our sensations, and that the theory of the world is simplified by 
reducing everything to his direct agency ; while atheism is de- 
prived of its greatest support — the independent, existence of 
matter. 

All the ingenuity of a century and half, has failed to see a way 
out of the contradiction exposed by Berkeley ; although he has 
not always guarded his own positions. It is to be regretted that 
he could not find some other name than idea, for expressing our 
object consciousness. In spite of all his attempts to distinguish 
ideas of sensation from the commonly understood ideas, he la- 
boured under a heavy disadvantage in running counter to the 
associations of familiar language. He laid himself open to refu- 
tation by something more severe than a ' grin,' or a nickname — 
Idealist. 

Hume. Hume is noted for having embraced the views of 
Berkeley, with the exception of that relating to a separate soul or 
spirit. He thus reduced all existence to perceptions and ideas. 

Hume's philosophy is given at greatest length in the ' Treatise 
on Human Nature.' The application of his philosophical prin- 
ciples to Material Perception, is found in Part IV. His subsequent 
work, entitled, ' An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding,' 
is prefaced by a note, desiring that this work, and not the Treatise 
on Human Nature, may be taken as representing his philosophical 
sentiments and principles. On referring to the ' Enquiry,' we 
find that the handling of the doctrine of perception is compressed 
into one very short chapter (Sect, xii.), entitled, ' Of the Aca- 
demical or Sceptical Philosophy.' It does not appear, however, 
that the author's views on this doctrine underwent any change ; 
or that any injustice would be done to him by referring to the 
more expanded treatment of Perception in the * Human Nature.' 
His fundamental views of the mind are the same in both treatises. 
His resolution of all our Intellectual elements into Impressions 
and Ideas, differing only in vividness or intensity ; his thorough- 
going Nominalism; his repudiation of any nexus in Cause and 
Effect beyond mere experience of their conjunction ; his explana- 
tion of Belief by the greater vividness of the object ; his reference 
of the belief in nature's uniformity to Custom; his refusal to 
admit anything that cannot be referred to a primary impression 
on the mind through the senses, — are cardinal doctrines of his 
philosophy from first to last. 



206 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

In the later work, his remarks on Perception are in the fol- 
lowing strain : — Men are prompted by a strong instinct of their 
nature to suppose the very images, presented by their senses, to 
be the external objects; not to represent them. On the other 
hand, philosophy so-called teaches that nothing can be present to 
the mind but an image or perception, that the senses are only the 
inlets, and do not constitute immediate intercourse between the 
mind and external objects. Thus philosophy has obviously de- 
parted from the dictates of nature, and has been deprived of that 
support, while exposing itself to the cavils of the sceptic, who 
asks, how it is that the perceptions of the mind must needs be 
caused by external objects (different, though resembling), and 
not from some energy of the mind itself, or through some un- 
known spirit or other cause ? Can there be anything more inex- 
plicable than that body should operate upon mind, the two being 
so different, and even so contrary in their nature ? It is a ques- 
tion of fact, whether the perceptions of the senses be produced by 
external objects resembling them. How shall this question be 
determined ? By experience surely ; but in such a matter experi- 
ence must be silent. The mind has nothing present to it but the 
perceptions, and cannot reach any experience of their connexion 
with objects. 

He then remarks on the distinction between the secondary and 
primary qualities, with a view of showing that, as regards the 
independent existence of their objects, the two classes are on the 
same level. 

If we turn to the Treatise on Human Nature, we find the 
subject of Sense Perception handled with great fulness of detail 
(Part IV. Sect. 2). Hume argues that, by the senses, we cannot 
know either continued or distinct existence. He then enquires how 
we came by the belief in the continued existence of the objects of 
the senses, and ascribes it to the coherence and constancy of our im- 
pressions respecting them. He observes that the mind once set 
agoing in a particular track, has a tendency to go on, even when 
objects fail it ; and, through this tendency, we transmute inter- 
rupted existence into continued existence. He accounts, on his 
general theory of belief (following vividness of impression) for 
our believing in this imagined continuity. Continued existence, 
when once recognized, easily conducts us to distinct or independent 
existence ; both being equally grounded on imagination, and not 
on reality. 

In Sect. v. , he treats of the Immateriality of the Soul, in 
which he represents the question, ' Whether our perceptions 
inhere in a material or in an immaterial substance ? ' as one 
wholly devoid of meaning. We have no perfect idea of anything 
but a perception. A substance is entirely different from a per- 
ception. We have therefore no idea of a substance. ' The doc- 
trine of the immateriality, simplicity, and indivisibility of a 
thinking substance is a true atheism, and will serve to justify all 
those sentiments for which Spinoza is so universally infamous.' 



REID. 207 

In the chapter (Sect, vi.) on Personal Identity, he denies the 
existence of self in the abstract; there is nothing to give us the 
impression of a perennial and invariable self. ' When I enter,' 
he says, ' most intimately into what I call myself, I always 
stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, 
light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure.' Mind is nothing 
but a bundle of conceptions, in a perpetual flux and movement. 
He goes on to explain by what tendencies of the mind the fiction 
of a pure, absolute self is set up, and what is the real nature of 
what we call ' personal identity.' 

Such is a brief indication of the celebrated scepticism of 
Hume. It is, however, to be remarked of him, in contrast to 
Berkeley, that he often expresses himself as if his theory was 
at variance with the experience of mankind. As he was a man 
fond of literary effects, as well as of speculation, we do not 
always know when he is earnest ; but he speaks as if the belief 
that fire warms and water refreshes, was the revolt of nature 
against his scepticism. It is no wonder that others have sup- 
posed him to deny both the existence of matter and the existence 
of mind, although, in point of fact, he denies neither, but only 
a certain theoretic mode of looking at and expressing the pheno- 
mena admitted by all. The outcry against him and Berkeley proves 
that a rose under another name does not always smell as sweet. 

Eeid. Eeid reclaimed against Berkeley and Hume, on the 
ground of what he called Common Sense. * To what purpose,' 
he says, 'is it for philosophy to decide against common sense in 
this or in any other matter ? The belief of a material world is 
older, and of more authority, than any principles of philosophy.' 
' That we have clear and distinct conceptions of extension, figure, 
and motion, and other attributes of body, which are neither sensa- 
tions, nor like any sensation, is a fact of which we may be as cer- 
tain as that we have sensations.' In general, it may be said, that 
Eeid declaims, rather than reasons on the question; and Hamilton, 
who equally repudiates the ideal theory, and appeals to conscious- 
ness in favour of the prevailing opinion, finds Eeid ' often at fault, 
often confused, and sometimes even contradictory.' In his edition 
of Eeid (Note C, p. 820), Hamilton draws up two classes of state- 
ments on the part of Eeid, pointing to two opposing doctrines, 
one called 'the doctrine of mediate perception,' which Hamilton 
disavows, and the other called 'immediate perception? which Ha- 
milton adopts. 

The doctrine of mediate conception, or representative con- 
ception, is the most glaring form of the doctrine of the separate 
existence of matter; its self- contradictory character is exposed 
by no one more vigorously than by Hamilton. He finds Eeid 
slipping into it, in saying that the primary qualities, Extension, 
&c, are suggested to us through the secondary : the secondary 
are the signs, on occasion of which we are made to ' conceive ' the 
primary. But, says Hamilton, if the primary qualities are sug- 
gested conceptions, our knowledge of the external world is wholly 



208 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

subjective or ideal. Equally unguarded is the expression that, 
4 if sensation be produced, the perception follows, even when there 
is no object.' So, to localize sensation (a pain in the toe, for 
instance) in the train is conformable to mediate or representative 
perception. Eeid's use of the terms ' notion ' and * conception ' 
likewise favours the same view. Also, in calling imagination of 
the past an immediate knowledge, Eeid is on dangerous ground : 
such immediate knowledge, applied to perception, is really a 
mediate knowledge. Again, the doctrine of Eeid and Stewart, 
that perception of distant objects is possible, if sifted, leads to 
representationism. Once more, Eeid's calling perception an in- 
ference is of the same tendency. Finally, he ought not to separate, 
as he does, our belief of an external world from our cognition 
of it. 

On the other hand, Hamilton adduces statements conformable 
to Eeal or Immediate presentation. These chiefly consist in repeat- 
ing the common opinion of mankind, that whatever is perceived 
exists. Mr. J. S. Mill, in opposition to Hamilton, maintains that 
Eeid throughout adhered to the doctrine of Eepresentation, or 
mediate perception, and quotes numerous passages, where he 
iterates the view that the sensations are merely signs, and that 
the objects themselves are the things signified. What he did not 
maintain was, that the sign resembled the original; which is a 
crude form of representative perception. 

Stewart followed Eeid so closely on the subject of Percep- 
tion, that a separate account of his opinions is unnecessary. 
Brown is noted for the virulence of his attack upon Eeid's claims 
to have vindicated Common Sense against Idealism. The attack 
has been reviewed by Hamilton, who in his turn is reviewed by 
Mr. J. S. Mill. Mr. Mill's reading of Brown is that he is substan- 
tially at one with Eeid. ' He (Brown) thought that certain sen- 
sations, irresistibly, and by a law of our nature, suggest, without 
any process of reasoning, and without the intervention of any 
tertium quid, the notion of something external, and an invincible 
belief in its real existence. Brown differed from Eeid (and also 
from Hamilton) in denying an intuitive perception of the Primary 
Qualities of bodies. 

Hamilton. Hamilton has distinguished himself both as the 
historian and critic of the Theories of Perception, and as the pro- 
pounder of a theory of his own, different alike from Berkeley and 
from Eeid. 

He has endeavoured to give an exhaustive classification of all 
the possible theories. [See Edition of Eeid, Note C, and 
Lectures.] 

As his scheme is a theoretical rather than a historical one, it 
comprehends doctrines that have probably never been held. The 
first great division is into Presentation and Eepresentation ; or 
into those that consider what is presented to the mind as the 
whole fact, and those that consider that there is some other fact 
not presented to the mind. The first class — the Presentationists — 



HAMILTON. 209 

is divided into the Natural Eealists or Natural Dualists, who 
accept the common sense view that the object of perception is some- 
thing material, extended, and external [Hamilton's own opinion], 
and the Idealists, who consider that nothing exists beyond ideas 
of the mind. He gives various refined subdivisions of this class, 
which must of course take in Berkeley and Hume. Hume's ex- 
treme doctrine, he calls (in the Lectures) Nihilism, and expressively 
describes it as ' a consciousness of various bundles of baseless ap- 
pearances.' The second great class — the Eepresentationists — has 
many supposed varieties ; but the main example of it is designated 
by the phrase ' Cosmothetic Idealism' ; meaning that an External 
"World is supposed apart from our mental perception, as the incon- 
ceivable and incomprehensible cause of that perception. The 
mental fact or perception is thus not ultimate, but vicarious, and 
intermediate, — the means of suggesting or introducing something 
else. This view Hamilton, in common with Berkeley, Hume, and 
Ferrier, holds to be untenable, and absurd. 

His own doctrine — Natural Eealism — by which he proposes to 
vindicate the common sense view, and yet avoid the difficulties of 
the Eepresentative scheme, contains the following allegations : — 

1. In the act of sensible perception, I am conscious of two 
things — of myself the perceiving subject, and of an external reality 
in relation with my sense as the object perceived. 

2. I am conscious of knowing each not mediately in something 
else, as represented, but immediately, as existing. 

3. The two are known together, but in mutual contrast ; they 
are one in knowledge, but opposed in existence. 

4. In their mutual relation, each is equally dependent, and 
equally independent. 

5. We are percipient of nothing but what is in proximate con- 
tact, in immediate relation with our organs of sense ; in short, with 
the rays of light on the retina (Eeid, p. 814). From which it follows 
as an inference, that when different persons look at the sun, each 
sees a separate object. 

In the hostile criticisms of Mr. Samuel Bailey, and Mr. Mill, 
this last position has been singled out as the author's greatest con- 
tradiction both of fact and of himself. It may be remarked, how- 
ever, that in his more fundamental positions, there is an insur- 
mountable contradiction. By his hypothesis of immediate percep- 
tion, he has escaped the difficulties of the Representationist, to 
fall into others equally serious. If we are to interpret terms 
according to their meaning, how are we to reconcile immediate 
knowledge, and an external reality ? A reality external to us must 
be removed from us, if by never so little interval ; and it is im- 
possible to understand how the mind can be cognizant of a thing 
detached from itself. Then, how can the two things be equally 
dependent and equally independent. This is admissible as an epigram, 
but must be resolvable by a double sense of the words. In no 
sense can we reconcile independent existence with the dependence 
necessary to knowledge. 

14 



210 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

There is another criticism applicable to these positions. 
Hamilton justly lays it down as the condition of a fact of con- 
sciousness, or fundamental truth, that it must be ultimate and 
simple ; in other words, the terms of the fact must refer to ultimate 
elements of our experience. Apply this test to the terms ' exter- 
nal,' * independent/ and * reality;' and we shall have to admit 
that these are not simple or ultimate notions, but complex and 
derived. It is inadmissible, therefore, to regard any proposition 
involving them as an ultimate fact of consciousness. 

Ferrieb. Ferrier's system is occupied with illustrating under 
every imaginable variety of expression, from the rigour of geo- 
metrical forms to the richest colours of poetry, the necessary 
implication of the object and the subject,— the impossibility and 
the self-contradiction of an independent material world. His first 
proposition in the ' Institutes,' is perhaps not the most satisfactory 
in its wording, but viewed by the light of those that follow, its 
meaning becomes clear: — ' Along with whatever our intelligence 
knows, it must as the ground or condition of its knowledge, have 
some cognizance of self.' This he conceives the most fundamental 
expression of the fact that our knowledge of the world is a mental 
modification ; a something held in the grasp of mind, not some- 
thing totally apart from mind. 

He proceeds, in his second proposition, to say that — ' The object 
of knowledge, whatever it may be, is always something more 
than is naturally or usually regarded as the object. It always is, 
and must be, the object with the addition of one's self,— object 
plus subject; thing, or thought, mecum. Self is an integral and 
essential part of every object of cognition' — a various wording 
of the general doctrine. So is Prop. III. 'The objective 
part of the object of knowledge, though distinguishable, is not 
separable in cognition from the subjective part, or the ego; but 
the objective part and the subjective part do together constitute 
the unit or minimum of knowledge.' Still more pointed in the 
statement, though still the same in substance, is Prop. IV. : — 
' Matter per se, the whole material universe by itself, is of necessity 
absolutely unknowable,' After this, it is little else than tau- 
tology (justifiable in the circumstances) to add in Prop. V. : — ' All 
the qualities of matter by themselves are of necessity absolutely un- 
knowable.' His other propositions still repeat the main idea, but 
with reference to the explication of the various terms of philosophy 
— Universal and Particular, Ego and non-Ego, Sense and Intellect, 
Presentation and Eepresentation, Phenomenon, Substance, Bela- 
tive, Absolute, Contingent. 

The questionable expression in the first and fundamental pro- 
position, is the phrase 'have some cognizance of itself,' which 
suggests a more specific effect of self-consciousness than the author 
really means. His other propositions are content with the more 
general and safe afiirmation, that, in knowledge, self must be pre- 
sent as an essential part of the fact. It is not necessary, and it 
appears scarcely accurate, to say that the mind, while cognizing 



FERRIER. — MANSEL. 211 

an object, must at the same time be cognizing self. The cognition 
of self points to the study of the subject mind, in which there is a 
remission of the object regards. 

Besides his ' Institutes of Metaphysic,' Ferrier has several 
dissertations on the same question, now brought together in a 
posthumous publication. The burden of them all is the same; 
his effort still is to expose the self -contradiction of the prevailing 
theory. He is almost exclusively occupied in clearing the ground ; 
and when we seek his own positive views we find only a few brief 
indications. 

In the first place, he contends that Perception is a simple, 
ultimate, indivisible fact : * the absolutely elementary in cognition, 
the ne plus ultra of thought. It has no pedigree. It admits of no 
analysis. It is not a relation constituted by the coalescence of an 
objective and a subjective element. It is not a state or modifica- 
tion of the human mind. It is not an effect which can be dis- 
tinguished from its cause. It is positively the First, with no 
forerunner.' (Lectures and Eemains, ii. 411.) 

Secondly, as the ultimate support of our Perception and 
Matter, he follows Berkeley in assigning the direct agency of the 
Deity. He puts the question, * Is the Perception of matter a 
modification of the human mind, or is it not ? ' and replies, ' that 
in his belief it is not.' He thus repudiates ' subjective idealism, 
and cares not what other idealism he is charged with.' 

Mansel. Mr.Mansel maintains (1) that being in itself, or 
substance without attributes, is not only unknowable but contrary 
to the nature of things. (2) That Berkeley's denial of the existence 
of matter (in the sense of the unknown support of qualities) is not 
in any way contrary to common sense. (3) But when Berkeley 
went so far as to assert the non-existence of matter, he went as far 
beyond the evidence as his opponents did in maintaining its 
existence. [Berkeley might, however, deny it on the ground that 
it was a self -contradictory and fictitious entity of the imagination.] 

(4) It' is possible to take an intermediate course, to admit that 
we have no right to assert the existence of any other kind of 
matter than what is presented in consciousness ; but to deny 
Berkeley's other position, that we are conscious only of our own 
ideas. ' If, in any mode of consciousness whatever, an external 
object is directly presented as existing in relation to me, that 
object, though composed of sensible qualities only, is given as a 
material substance, existing as a distinct reality, and not merely 
as a mode of my own mind.' This is very much the language of 
Hamilton's Natural Eealism ; and, like it, treats the adult con- 
sciousness as expressing the natural or primitive consciousness. 

(5) He maintains with Berkeley, and against Hume, that a 
personal self is directly presented in intuition, together with its 
several affections. 

(6) He, moreover, analyzes the fact of external perception, and 
specifies resistance to locomotive energy, as the mode of conscious- 
ness which directly tells us of the existence of an external world. 



212 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

He would not admit that this consciousness is the external world. 
(Metaphysics, pp. 329, 346.) 

Bailey. Mr. Samuel Bailey has devoted a large portion of 
his • Letters on the Human Mind ' to the problem before us. He 
criticises Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Beid, Brown, Stewart, Kant, 
and Hamilton. His own view is, that ' the perception of external 
things through the organs of sense is a direct mental fact or phe- 
nomenon of consciousness not susceptible of being resolved into 
anything else.' ■ It is vain attempting to trace any mental event 
between the percipient and the thing perceived ; vain trying to 
express the fact more simply or fully than by saying, we perceive 
the object.' In short, perception is a simple, indivisible, ultimate 
experience of the human mind. 

A conclusion to the same effect is enunciated by Ferrier, al- 
though he and Mr. Bailey would probably not accord on anything 
else as regards this problem. 

The absolute simplicity of this experience is as doubtful in 
itself, as it is at variance with the common belief. There are 
experiences of the mind that we pronounce, with great confidence, 
to be simple (although always reserving the possibility of future 
resolution), as our feeling of muscular energy, our sensation of 
sweetness in taste, our sensation of white light. But these cases 
of unequivocal simplicity are few in number, and difficult to state 
in their absolute purity ; and all of them are, indeed, crusted over 
with a numerous body of associations. But when we turn to the 
fact called perception, we cannot help being struck with the 
appearance, at least, of complexity. There is seemingly a combi- 
nation of a perceiving mind, a mode of activity of that mind, and 
a something to be perceived — nothing less than the whole extended 
universe. To make out this seemingly threefold concurrence to 
be an indivisible fact, would at least demand a justifying expla- 
nation. It is true that most of the attempts to analyze it have 
only brought their authors into contradictions ; and that there 
may be wisdom as well as safety in renouncing the task. Still, 
no one can answer for the whole future of philosophy ; no one 
can affirm that a fact, having so much the appearance of com- 
plexity as this, shall never be made to yield to analysis. 

J. S. Mill. In his ' Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philo- 
sophy,' Mr. Mill, after criticising Hamilton's mode of handling 
Perception, advances what he calls * The Psychological Theory of 
the Belief in an External World.' 

The theory postulates certain truths, proved by experience, and 
generally admitted, although not adequately felt by the school of 
Hamilton. 

The first truth is that the human mind is capable of Expectation; 
in other words, after experiencing actual sensations, we can con- 
ceive Possible sensations. 

He next postulates the Laws of Association. After briefly stating 
these laws, and alluding to the power of repetition in making the 
bond of Contiguity more secure, he points out that, in certain 



J. S. MILL. 213 

circumstances of unbroken and iterated conjunction, there may 
arise an Inseparable, or Indissoluble, association between two 
things, so that we shall be practically unable to conceive the 
things in separation ; as in the acquired perceptions of sight. 

Setting out from these premises, the theory maintains that 
there are associations naturally, and even necessarily, generated 
by the order of our sensations, and of our reminiscences of sensa- 
tion, such as would give rise to the belief of an external world, 
and make it seem an intuition. 

Mr. Mill asks, ' What is the meaning of a thing being external 
to us, and not a part of our thoughts ? ' and replies that there is 
meant something that exists when we are not thinking of it, that 
existed before we had thought of it, and would exist if we were 
annihilated ; and further, that there exist things that have never 
acted on our senses, and things never perceived by any one. Now, 
such a belief is within the compass of the known laws of associa- 
tion. ' E see a piece of white paper on a table. I go into another 
room, and though I have ceased to see the paper, I am persuaded 
that it is still there. I have not now the sensation, but I believe 
that when I place myself in the same circumstances, I shall have 
it again, at any moment.' Thus, together with a small and 
limited portion of actual sensation, there is always a vast compass 
of possible sensation. These possibilities are to us the external 
world ; the present sensations are fugitive, the possible sensations 
are Permanent. To this wide region of Permanent Possibility of 
sensation, a name is given — Substance, Matter, the External 
World; and although the thing thus named is related to, and 
based upon, our actual sensations, yet * from a familiar tendency 
of the mind,' the different name comes to be considered the name 
of a different thing. 

These certified or guaranteed possibilities of sensation, have 
another peculiarity ; they refer to sensations not single, but 
Grouped. A material substance is the rallying point of a great 
and indefinite number and variety of sensations : and when a few 
of these are present, the remaining number are conceived by us 
as Present Possibilities. As this happens in turn to all the sensa- 
tions, the group as a whole presents itself to the mind as Perma- 
nent, in contrast to the temporary and passing individual sensa- 
tions. The present sensation of a piece of money is but one of a 
vast aggregate of possible sensations that we might have in con- 
nexion with it. 

Again, we recognize a fixed Order of our sensations ; an Order 
of succession, giving rise to the idea of Cause and Effect, through 
the fixity of the sequence. But this order is not realized so much 
in actual sensations, as in the groups or possibilities of sensation. 
We find the possibilities to be regular, when the actualities are 
not ; the fire goes out and puts an end to one particular possibility 
of warmth and light. There is a constant set of possible sensa- 
tions forming the background to every actual sensation at any 
moment. 



214 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WOPvLtf. 

Now, when this point is reached, the Permanent Possibilities 
have assumed such an unlikeness of aspect, and such a difference 
of position to us, from the mere actualities, that it would be con- 
trary to all our experience of the human mind, if they were not 
conceived to be something intrinsically and generically distinct 
from the present feelings. The sensations cease ; the possibilities 
remain ; they are independent of our will, our presence, and every- 
thing belonging to us. 

Moreover, we find other sentient beings recognizing, in com- 
mon with ourselves, the Permanent Possibilities. They may not 
have the same actual sensations, but they have always the same 
possible sensations. This puts the final seal to our conception of 
the groups of possibilities as the fundamental Reality in Nature. 

The idea of Externality is derived solely from the notion that 
experience gives of the Permanent Possibilities. Our sensations 
we carry with us, and they never exist where we are not ; but, 
when we change our place, we do not change the Permanent 
Possibilities of Sensation. When we have ceased to feel, they will 
remain to others. 

The distinction of Primary and Secondary Qualities corre- 
sponds to the greater permanence of one class of sensations. The 
sensations of the Primary Qualities — Extension, Weight, &c, are 
constant, and the same at all times to all persons ; those of the 
Secondary qualities are only occasional ; they vary in the same 
person, and are different to different persons. 

As regards Mind, Mr. Mill holds that we have no conception 
of Mind in itself, as distinguished from its conscious manifesta- 
tions. The notion that we form of Mind, as a unity, is still de- 
rived from the attribute of Permanence. It is a Permanent Possi- 
bility of sensation, and also of thoughts, emotions and volitions. 
Its states differ from matter in not occurring in groups ; and still 
farther, in not being shared by other sentient beings. 



BOOK III. 

THE EMOTIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

FEELING IN GENEKAL. 

1. Of the two great divisions of the Feelings— Sensa- 
tions (with muscular feelings), and Emotions — the second 
has now to be entered upon. As a preparation, it is ex- 
pedient to resume the characters of Feeling in general. 

This survey might have preceded the consideration of the 
lower department of the Feelings ; but, iu exposition, there 
is often an advantage gained by deferring the higher gener- 
alities until some of the particulars have been given. 

The Muscular Feelings and Sensations are the primary 
Feelings, those arising out of the immediate operation of ex- 
ternal agents, with the minimum of intellectual processes and 
growths. The Special Emotions are secondary or derived, 
and involve the intellect. 

2. Positively, Feeling comprehends pleasures and 
pains, and states of excitement that are neither. Nega- 
tively, it is opposed to Volition and to Intellect. 

If Feeling were confined to pleasure and pain (as Hamil- 
ton assumes), it would have all the precision of our experience 
of those two states. But certain modes of consciousness, 
neither pleasurable nor painful, embraced by the word ' ex- 
citement,' are accounted feelings. This leaves a vague and 
uncertain margin in the boundary of the Feelings. 

There are only three ultimate modes of mind — Feeling, 
Volition, and Intellect. Volition is action under Feeling; its 



216 FEELING IN GENERAL. 

differentia, therefore, is active energy for an end, which is a dis- 
tinctive and well-defined property. Intellect has three constitu- 
ents, — discrimination, similarity, retentiveness, — all clearly de- 
finable. The precision attaching to Volition and to Intellect gives 
a precise negative definition to Feeling. Thus, any mental state 
not being Action for an End, and not regarded as Discrimination, 
Agreement, or Retentiveness, must be viewed as Feeling. 

3. Feeling has a two-fold aspect — Physical and 
Mental. 

The Physical aspect involves all the organs recog- 
nized as connected with mental operations — the Brain, 
Muscles, Senses, and Secreting organs. 

The manner of working of these organs, under states 
of feeling, is summed up in two great laws — Eelativity 
and Diffusion. 

The details already given in a former Book (I.) will ren- 
der sufficient a brief statement of these laws. 

4. The principle of Relativity, in its purely physical 
aspect, means that, in order to Peeling, there must be 
some change in the mode or intensity of the cerebral and 
other processes. 

The proofs in favour of the principle of Relativity em- 
brace at once its physical and its mental sides. It is scarcely 
possible to separate, in language, the two sides ; our most 
familiar names having a reference to both aspects. An im- 
pression suggests a physical as well as a mental phenomenon. 

5. The Law of Diffusion is thus expressed : — ' Accord- 
ing as an impression is accompanied with Peeling, the 
aroused currents diffuse themselves freely over the brain, 
leading to a general agitation of the moving organs, as 
well as affecting the viscera/ 

This law is implied in the details already given as to the 
expression or embodiment of the feelings. Every feeling, in 
proportion to its strength, is accompanied with movements, 
and with changes in the organic functions. If a feeling has 
no such apparent accompaniments, we conclude, either that it 
is weak, or that there is an effort of voluntary (and, it may 
be, habitual) suppression. 

The physical groundwork of the great distinction of 
Pleasure and Pain, is fully explained in Book L, chap. IV". 
(p. 75). 



PLEASURE AND PAIN. 217 



CHARACTERS OF FEELING. 

6. The characters of Feeling are (1) those of Feeling 
proper (Emotional) ; (2) those referring to the Will (Voli- 
tional) ; (3) those bearing upon Thought (Intellectual) ; 
and (4) certain mixed properties, including Forethought, 
Desire, and Belief. 

Emotional Characters of Feeling. 

7. Every feeling has its characteristic physical side. 

As regards the Senses, a distinct origin or agency can be 
assigned, as well as a diffused wave of effects, the expression 
or outward embodiment of the state. In the Emotions, the 
physical origin is less definable, there being a supposed coalition 
of sensations with one another and with ideas ; the diffusion 
or expression is, therefore, the principal fact. For the opposite 
states of pleasure and pain, and for the leading emotions, as 
wonder, fear, love, &c, the outward expression is remarkably 
characteristic. 

8. On the mental side, we recognize Quality (Pleasure, 
Pain, Indifference) ; Degree, in the two modes of Intensity 
and Quantity ; and Speciality. 

Quality. This expresses the fundamental distinction of 
Pleasure and Pain, involving the sum of all human interest, 
the ends of all pursuit. Happiness and Misery are the names 
of aggregates, or totals of pleasures and pains. Each one's 
happiness may be defined as the surplus centre when the total 
of pain is subtracted from the total of pleasure. 

We may have feeling without either pleasure or pain. 
Surprise is a familiar instance. Some surprises give us de- 
light, others cause suffering ; but many do neither. A pain- 
ful emotion may be deprived of its pain, and yet leave us in 
a state of excitement ; and still oftener, a pleasurable emotion 
may cease as delight, but not as feeling. The name excite- 
ment applies to many such states. There may be a certain 
amount of pleasure or of pain, but we are conscious of a still 
greater amount of mere agitation or excitement. 

Degree. The degree or strength of a feeling admits of the 
two distinct modes, named Intensity or acuteness, and Quan- 
tity or mass. The prick of a pin is an acute pain ; the de- 
pression of general fatigue is massive. The physical fact, in 



218 FEELING IN GENERAL. 

acuteness, is the intense stimulation of a small surface, in mas- 
sive feeling, the gentler stimulation of a wide surface. 

Acute pleasures and pains stimulate the will, and impress 
the intellect, perhaps more strongly than an equivalent stimu- 
lation of the massive kind. Hence their efficacy as motives. 
In punishment, acute pains have the advantage of being much 
dreaded, while they do not endanger health. 

Massive pleasures have the power of soothing morbid 
activity, and of inducing the tender emotion. Massive pains 
are recognized under such names as depression, gloom, melan- 
choly, despair. Their amount is known by the pleasure that 
they can neutralize. They debilitate and weaken the tone of the 
system, and are not favourable to voluntary exertion, although 
their motive force ought to be great. They are powerful to 
induce abstinence from the actions that give rise to them. 

For Speciality, see examples under the Senses. 

Volitional Characters of Feeling. 

9. The Will is moved by the feelings ; pleasure caus- 
ing pursuit, pain avoidance. Hence the voluntary actions 
are a farther clue to the states of feeling. There is no 
direct volitional stimulus given by neutral excitement. 

As the energy of pursuit or avoidance is in proportion 
to the degree of the pleasure or pain, other things being the 
same, we possess both an additional character of those feel- 
ings, and an important indication of their presence and amount 
in human beings. 

The neutral feelings govern the actions only through the 
fixed idea, by which a disturbing force is brought to bear on 
the operations of the will, as influenced by pleasure and pain. 

Intellectual Characters of Feeling. 

10. A Feeling viewed with reference to any one of the 
three properties — Discrimination, Agreement, Eetentive- 
ness — assumes an intellectual aspect, and is on the eve 
of becoming a state of intellect proper. Still, as there 
belongs to all feelings a certain degree of ideal persistence 
and recoverability, and as importance attaches to this 
Eetentive property, we may recognize it as their intel- 
lectual attribute. 

Feelings have a different value according as, on the one 
hand, they pass away and are forgotten ; or as, on the other, 
they are easily recovered, at after times, by mental instigation 



FORETHOUGHT AND DESIKE. 219 

solely. The violent shocks of physical pain, as in organic 
sensations, are not easily remembered. The pleasures and 
pains of the higher senses are more retainable ; and the feel- 
ings connected with some of the special emotions, as Tender 
Feeling, Pride, &c, are perhaps still better remembered. 
One of the meanings of refinement as applied to pleasures is 
the being more easily sustained in the ideal state ; in this 
meaning, the intellectual senses impart more refined pleasures 
than Taste or Smell. 

Farther applications of the Retentiveness of Feeling will 
be given under the next head. 

Mixed Characters of Feeling. 

11. The consideration of Feeling, under the intellec- 
tual attribute of Retentiveness or Ideal permanence, brings 
into view the nature of Forethought or Prudence. 

A feeling in the actual, as Hunger, prompts the will 
according to its strength or degree ; the same feeling, in anti- 
cipation, has power according as the force of the actual cleaves 
to it in the ideal, which depends on the Retentiveness of the 
mind for past states of the feeling. A feeling, however strong 
in the actual, if feebly remembered, will have no power to 
stimulate efforts of pursuit or avoidance. According as the 
remembrance of a pleasure approaches the vividness of actuality, 
is the energy of the will on its account sustained in absence ; 
the pursuit is thus steady, although the fruition is only occa- 
sional. 

12. The state of Desire grows out of the retentiveness 
of the mind for pleasure and pain. 

Desire is a mixed property. A pleasure is present to the 
mind as an idea ; the idea, however falls short of the original ; 
the consciousness of this inferiority is painful, and urges us 
to realize the full actuality. 

13. It is the property of every feeling to Occupy the 
mind — to fix the attention upon the cause or object of the 
feeling, and to exclude other objects. 

This applies alike to pleasures, to pains, and to neutral 
excitement ; with modifications due to the characteristics of 
the three modes of feeling. 

Pleasure, as such, detains the mental regards ; the charm 
of a spectacle or a piece of music is all-engrossing. Hence 
the pleasing emotions are what most strongly possess the 



220 FEELING m GENERAL. 

attention and repel all attempts at diversion. If we were to 
look to this case solely, we might suppose that the engross- 
ment was due to the pleasure as such. 

It is, however, a fact that painful feelings have a power 
to detain and engross the mind. This is contrary to the 
working of pain as such, which is to repel whatever causes 
it ; we shut the ears to discord, and turn the eyes away from 
a dizzying sight. But the mere fact of our being excited by 
a painful idea retains it in the mind : we cannot banish it, 
although we will to do so ; the very attempt often increases 
the mental excitement, which is to increase its permanence. 
Thus, a painful excitement, as excitement, or feeling, detains 
the mind, while, as pain, it would seek to remove our atten- 
tion from the cause^ and allay the state of feeling. 

We can now understand the characteristic attribute of 
Neutral feelings. As feeling, they detain and occupy the 
mind, although without the aid of pleasure, or the opposition 
due to pain. The detention is due simply to the strength of 
the excitement as such. A surprise makes us attend to the 
circumstance causing it ; it is a power to prevent us from 
attending to, or thinking of, other things. It controls our 
thoughts for the time that it lasts, directing them towards 
the matters connected with it, and away from all unconnected 
things. 

14. The influence of the feelings on Belief is of a 
mixed nature. 

That influence can be understood from what has just 
been said. Pleasure, as such, influences belief. In the first 
place, it influences the Will in action or pursuit, which carries 
belief with it ; he that is fond of sport is urged to follow it, 
and believes (in opposition to evidence) that no harm or risk 
will attend it. In the next place, pleasure detains the mind 
upon the favourite objects, and excludes all considerations of 
a hostile kind : this is the influence upon the thoughts, even 
when no voluntary action is instigated ; any opinion that is 
agreeable to us gains possession of our thoughts, and is a 
hostile power against the suggestion of views running counter 
to it. 

Pain, as such, would make us revolt from the objects and 
thoughts that induce it, and would make us disbelieve in 
those objects and thoughts; a narrative of great atrocity 
would, through that circumstance, induce to disbelief. But 
through the excitement of mind that it causes, it keeps our 



INFLUENCE IN BELIEF. 221 

attention morbidly fixed on all its circumstances, and by the 
very intensity of the feeling, and in spite of the pain, favours 
our reception and belief of the particulars alleged. 

Neutral Excitement, as such, and in proportion to its 
strength, by detaining the thoughts, and excluding others, 
is a power on the side of belief. We are to a certain extent 
disposed to believe whatever we are made strongly to conceive 
and feel. 

Thus all the feelings of the mind are influential in swaying 
the beliefs, in thwarting the reason, and in perverting the 
judgment in matters of truth and falsehood. 

THE INTERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELINQ. 

15. For a knowledge of the feelings of others, we must 
trust to external signs, interpreted by our own conscious- 
ness. The signs are (1) the Expression, (2) the Conduct, 
and (3) the indications of the Course of the Thoughts. 

(1) The outward Expression or Embodiment is a key 
to the nature and the amount of the feeling. 

This arises out of the fact that different feelings express 
themselves differently, and that the stronger the feeling the 
stronger the expression. 

In interpreting the signs of feeling furnished by the 
features, voice, gestures, &c, we have to observe certain pre- 
cautions. In the first place, the same outward expression may 
not correspond in all persons to the same degree of feeling. 
Some temperaments are naturally demonstrative, others are 
wanting in demonstration. One man may be in the practice 
of giving way to the outburst of feeling, another may habitu- 
ally suppress, or moderate, the external display. Even in the 
same person, the vigour of the demonstrations will vary with 
the strength and freshness of the organs ; the young are more 
lively than the old, without being necessarily more affected. 
The practical inference is that we should make allowance for 
temperament (if it can be ascertained) and for the state of 
bodily vigour, before concluding that the most vociferous 
and demonstrative person feels most. 

16. (2) The Conduct pursued is an indication of the 
strength of the feelings, especially as regards pleasure 
and pain. 

This is the law of the Will. According to the degree of a 
pleasure is the urgency to pursue it ; according to the degree 



222 FEELING IN GENERAL. 

of a pain, is the urgency to avoid it. We infer strength of 
taste or liking on the one hand, and strength of disliking on 
the other, from the motive force of each in pursuit and avoid- 
ance. The criterion of conduct is probably more to be trusted 
than the criterion of demonstrativeness ; the combination of 
the two makes a still greater approach to accuracy. 

The exceptions to this test, are the exceptions to the Will. 
In a very energetic temperament, strength of action does not 
imply strength of feeling ; allowance must be made for the 
vigour of mere spontaneity. Again, the fixed idea may be a 
disturbing element, as in Fear. Lastly, habits of acting once 
formed, cease to represent the power of a present feeling. 

17. (3) The Course of the Thoughts may bear the 
impress of Feeling, and give evidence of its kind and 
degree. 

We have seen that the feelings detain the mind with their 
objects, and, in proportion to their strength, exclude other 
objects. There is no stronger proof of affection, than the 
constant occupation of the thoughts with a beloved object. 
Vanity is attested in the same unmistakeable way. The in- 
ability to banish a painful subject is an evidence of the inten- 
sity of the pain, since it overcomes the force of the will, as 
well as confines the intellectual trains to one channel. 

The counteractive to this test is the natural and acquired 
amount of the intellectual forces, which offer a certain strength 
of resistance to the detention of the mind on one class of ideas. 
A man of high intellectual endowments may have strong 
feelings, without being possessed by them to the same degree 
as a feebler intellect. Moreover, it is a part of self-control to 
check the influence of emotion in this, as well as in other 
points where it exercises a mastery. 

] 8. The influence on Belief is a decisive test of the 
strength of a feeling. 

This is the practical outcome of the volitional and intel- 
lectual power combined. When one is carried away by some 
ideal, in despite of facts and evidence, the cause is a strong 
emotion. Such is the influence of love or of antipathy. 

19. The liabilities to error of these several tests, taken 
separately, are to a great degree counteracted "when they 
are taken together. 

The demonstrative temperament exaggerates the expres- 



ESTIMATE OF HAPPINESS AND MISERY. 223 

sion of feeling, but the test of conduct will apply a correction. 
The man of natural energy may seem to have strong likings 
for the things that he pursues, or dislikings for what he 
avoids ; but the course of his thoughts and the strength of 
his beliefs, failing to confirm the inference, will set his char- 
acter in its true light. 

20. We attain an insight into the feelings of others by 
their own description of them. Each man can compare 
his own feelings, and state their relative degree. The 
thing required is a standard, or common measure, between 
one person and another. 

If by means of the various tests already indicated, one 
man can obtain the assurance that, in some point, he feels 
exactly as another does, a common measure is established 
between them ; by reference to which they can make known 
to each other the intensity of their feelings generally. Two 
persons comparing notes, as to expression, conduct, and the 
course of thought, may arrive at the conclusion that in the 
enjoyment of music, they are on a par ; they are then able 
(approximately) to estimate one another's feelings as to all 
other things. 

21. The criteria of feeling may be applied in estimating 
the Happiness or the Misery of our fellow-beings. 

As the estimate of our own happiness or misery is the 
guide to our actions as regards ourselves, the estimate of the 
happiness or misery of our fellows is the basis of our sympa- 
thies, our duties, and our entire conduct towards them. It is 
the immediate foundation of Ethics and of Politics, and the 
final consideration in all knowledge, science, and art. 

It is remarked by Paley, with reference to the amount of 
happiness belonging to different pursuits and modes of life, 
that there is ' a presumption in favour of those conditions of 
life in which men appear most cheerful and contented. For 
though the apparent happiness of mankind be not always a 
true measure of their real happiness, it is the best measure we 
have.' For a rough estimate, cheerfulness and contentment 
are good indications ; both, however, are liable to mislead. 
Cheerfulness, in the demonstrative temperament of a French- 
man or an Italian, would not mean the same thing as in an 
Englishman. A still greater uncertainty would belong to the 
other criterion — contentment ; for that state is a proof, not so 
much of happiness, as of training. Many are content with little ; 



2M FEELING IN GENERAL. 

others, with a large fund of happiness, remain dissatisfied ; as 
regards these, therefore, it is not true that discontent is a 
sign of unhappiness. Contentment is a virtue of great im- 
portance to society generally ; still, it does not indicate the 
possession of happiness by the subject of it. 

Men's happiness can be measured only by the degree and 
the continuance of their enjoyments, as compared with the 
degree and the continuance of their pains. We have to apply 
the various tests, in the course of a sufficient observation, 
to determine these points. If we can farther interrogate 
each one as to their own feelings and experience, we shall 
come still closer to the truth. 

An easier mode of approximating to the estimate in ques- 
tion, and one far more accurate than Paley's two tests 
(although not suitable to some of his opinions), is to consider 
each man's share of the usual sources of pleasure, and his 
exemptions from the usual sources of pain. The so-called 
good things of life — Health, Wealth, Friends, Honours, 
Power, opportunities of gratification, a smooth career — so 
unequally possessed by mankind, are a rough measure of hap- 
piness. The estimate may, however, be made more exact by 
close individual observation and the application of the tests. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF FEELING, 

22. An outburst of feeling passes through the stages 
of rise, culmination, and subsidence. 

What we call a state of feeling, or emotion, is a transitory 
outburst from a permanent condition approaching to indiffer- 
ence. There is every variety of mode as respects both degree 
and duration. A feeble stimulus can be continued longer 
than a powerful one ; while every intense display must be ren- 
dered short by exhaustion. 

Practically, the moment of culmination of feeling, or pas- 
sion, is the moment of perilous decisions and fatal mistakes. 

23. The emotional states are prone to alternation and 
periodicity. 

The Appetites are marked by regularity of recurrence 
depending on bodily causes. In the pleasurable feelings 
generally, the great alternation is from exercise, on the one 
hand, to remission or repose on the other. This is a prime 
condition of the maintenance of a flow of pleasure. Each 
sensibility is roused in turn, and remitted when the point of 
exhaustion is reached. 



ENDS OF THE ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS. 225 

Habit determines a more specific alternation. Sensibilities 
accustomed to be gratified at periodic intervals, acquire the 
force of appetites. 

24. It is proper, in conclusion, to set forth the ends to 
be served by the analysis of the Feelings. 

(1) Here, as elsewhere, there is scope for gratifying en- 
lightened curiosity, by the reference of various and compli- 
cated phenomena to general laws. 

(2) The chief foundations of Ethics are to be found in the 
nature of the human feelings. The question of the Moral 
Sense is a question as to the simple or compound character of 
a feeling. 

(3) The wide department of ^Esthetics, in like manner, 
supposes a knowledge of the laws and varieties of feeling. 
The Poetical and Literary Art, for example, is amenable to 
improvement, according as the human emotions are more 
exactly studied. The science of Rhetoric, for the time being, 
contains the application of the science of mind in general, 
and of the feelings in particular, to literary composition. 

(4) The theory of Human Happiness reposes immediately 
on the knowledge of the human feelings. This must ever be 
the point of convergence of all the sciences, but it is the 
science of the feelings that gives the line of direction. 

(5) The Interpretation of Human Character, the under- 
standing of men and their motives, will grow with the im- 
proved knowledge of the feelings. ~Not merely the emotional 
character as such, and the conduct, or voluntary actions, whose 
motives are the feelings, but also much of what seems purely 
intellectual tendencies, may derive elucidation from the pre- 
sent subject. The intellectual forces are, in all men to some 
extent, and in many men to a great extent, swayed by emo- 
tion. In particular, the man of Imagination, in the proper 
sense of the word, the poet or artist, is determined, in his 
productions, as much by feeling as by intellect. 



15 



226 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION, 



CHAPTEE II. 
THE EMOTIONS AND THEIE CLASSIFICATION. 

1. The Emotions, as compared with the Sensations, 
are secondary, derived, or compound feelings. 

The Muscular Feelings and the Sensations are assumed to 
be the primary or fundamental sensibilities. The concurrence, 
or combination, of these, in various ways, originates new 
states that acquire a permanent and generic form, wherein the 
simple elements cease to be apparent. 

2. Sensations, and their ideas, may coalesce to form 
new feelings, or emotions. 

First, The simplest case is a plurality of sensations, 
whether of the same sense, or of different senses, in 

MUTUAL HARMONY or in MUTUAL CONFLICT. 

Harmony is a source of pleasure, Discord of pain. We 
may reasonably assume, as the physical basis of the situation, 
that, in the one case, the nerve currents conspire to a common 
effect, and, in the other case, run into wasting conflict. 

Examples will arise in the subsequent detail. The element 
of Harmony is prominent in the Fine Art Emotions. Con- 
sistency and Inconsistency in truth and falsehood are feelings 
related to the exercise of the Intellect. There is a species of 
Harmony in the workings of Sympathy. 

3. Secondly, There may be, as a consequence of the 
Law of Contiguity, a transfer of feelings to things that 
do not originally excite them, as in the cases already 
illustrated (Contiguity, § 33). 

4. Thirdly, There may be a coalescence of separate 
feelings into one aggregate or whole, as in Property, 
Beauty, Justice, and the Moral Sentiment. 

These examples nearly all illustrate both transfer and 
coalescence. 

5. We cannot, in classifying the emotions, comply 
with the rules of logical division. The nature of the case 
admits of but one method — to proceed from the simpler to 
the more complex. 



GENERA OF EMOTION. 227 

There are several well-marked and important genera of 
emotion, which must find a place under every classification, 
although there may be different views as to the best order to 
take them in ; as, for example, Love, Anger, Fear, Wonder ; 
which are all comparatively simple. Others have a high degree 
of complexity ; such, in my opinion, are Beauty and the 
Moral Sentiment. 

The treatment of the various kinds of Emotions must essen- 
tially consist in defining and describing each with precision, 
in assigning the derivation, if possible, and in tracing out the 
most usual forms and varieties. In the description, we shall 
apply the Natural History method, already exemplified in the 
Sensations. 

6. The arrangement is as follows : — 

I. While the Law of Relativity is essential to Feeling in 
every form, there are certain Emotional states of a very 
general kind, developed by the mere intensity of the transi- 
tion ; such are Novelty, Surprise, and Wonder. 

There are also certain pleasurable feelings that are the 
rebound from very general modes of pain, and which are, 
therefore, more peculiarly connected with Relativity ; as 
Liberty with reference to Restraint, and Power as the 
rebound from Impotence. 

In none of the feelings, can we leave out of view this great 
condition of mental life ; but, in a certain number of instances, 
the emotional state exists only as a transition between opposites : 
the pleasure supposes a previous pain, and the pain a previous 
pleasure. 

II. The emotion of Terror, or Fear, may receive an early 
consideration. 

IIL The Tender Emotion, or Love, is a well-marked and 
far-reaching susceptibility of our nature, and a leading source 
of our pleasures. We may append to it the emotions of 
Admiration, Reverence, and Esteem. 

IY. When we see in ourselves the qualities that excite 
love or admiration in others, we are affected by a pleasurable 
emotion, named Self-Complacency, Self-gratulation, Self- 
esteem. This will be shown to be a derivative of the Tender 
Emotion. 

A still further effect of the same pleasurable kind is pro- 
duced on us by the admiration or esteem of others, the names for 
which are Approbation, Praise, Reputation, Glory, and the like. 

V. The elation of superior Power is a very marked and 
widely ramifying genus of pleasurable emotion, being an 



228 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. 

emotion of pure Relativity or Comparison ; the correlative is 
the pain of Impotence. 

VI. Anger or the Irascible Emotion is the pleasurable 
emotion of malevolence. 

The foregoing comprise the best marked of our simpler 
emotions. For although they are all more or less of a com- 
pound nature, yet there is, in each, something characteristic 
and peculiar, imparting a generic distinctness, and obtaining 
a separate recognition throughout the human race. 

VII. There are certain Emotional situations arising under 
the action of Will. Besides the pleasures and pains of Exer- 
cise, and the gratification of succeeding in an End, with the 
opposite mortification of missing what is laboured for, there is, 
in the attitude of Pursuit, a peculiar state of mind, so far 
agreeable in itself, that factitious occupations are instituted 
to bring it into play. When I use the term Plot-interest, 
the character of the situation alluded to will be suggested 
with tolerable distinctness. 

VIII. The exercise of the Intellect also is attended with 
states of Emotion. More especially, under the Law of Simi- 
larity, the identification of Like in the midst of unlike is the 
cause of agreeable surprise ; while Inconsistency or Con- 
tradiction is an occasion of pain. 

IX. The foregoing classes possess each a certain unity 
and distinctness as respects their origin in the human con- 
stitution. The next class is one that has been very com- 
monly regarded as a unity in the investigations of philoso- 
phers. I mean the emotions of Fine Art, expressed by the 
single term Beauty, or the Beautiful. There is doubtless 
a certain individuality in the feeling that mankind have 
agreed to designate by the common phrase, c the feeling of 
beauty,' but this community of character implies little more 
than a refined pleasure. If we take the productions of 
Fine Art, and examine the sources of the delight that they 
give us, we shall find a very great variety of species, notwith- 
standing the generic likeness implied in classifying them 
together. Many of our simple sensations, and many of the 
feelings belonging to the different heads just enumerated, 
are brought into play by artistic compositions. 

X. The Moral Sense in man, like the sense of beauty, has 
been very generally looked upon as one and indivisible ; a 
position exceedingly open to question. The subject will be 
fully considered, in the part of this volume devoted to 
Ethics. 



NOVELTY. 229 



CHAPTER III. 

EMOTIONS OF EELATIVITY: NOVELTY.— 
WONDEE.— LIBEETY. 

1. The Objects of the emotion of Noveltv are well 

«/ 

understood. 

The Physical circumstance may be inferred to be a 
change in the locality of nervous action, extending also to 
the allied organs — the muscles and the senses. 

That pleasure should arise from varying the parts and 
organs stimulated, is a necessary consequence of the fact that 
stimulation is pleasurable. 

2. The Emotion is, in Quality, pleasurable ; in Degree, 
various, according to the stimulation, which may be acute 
or massive. It has no Speciality. 

The pleasure is, in fact, the primitive charm of all sensa- 
tion, before it has been dulled by continuance and satiety. 
It has the vagueness of character belonging to mere organic 
stimulation. 

3. The corresponding pain is Monotony, tedium, ennui. 

This arises from some parts of the system being unduly 
drawn upon, while others have their stimulation withheld. 
Its ordinary modes are generally known ; the extreme and 
agonizing degrees are made use of in punishment. 

Monotony is often aggravated by the pain of excessive 
Subjectivity, or self-consciousness. The absence of objective 
attractions leaves the mind in the subjective condition, which, 
when long continued, gives the sense of intolerable ennui. To 
be confined in the dark, or without occupation, is to be made 
the victim of subjective tedium. 

Under the Species of Novelty, we may indicate, first, the 
simple Sensations, as encountered in early life. Such of these 
as are in their nature pleasing, are, in the first experience, 
pre-eminently so. The general exhilaration designated by the 
word Freshness, is due, among other causes, to novelty of sen- 
sation. 



230 EMOTIONS OF KELATIVITY. 

The primary sensations are speedily gone through, and 
fall into the ordinary routine of pleasures, which, by being re- 
mitted or alternated, continue to afford a certain measure of 
delight. The charm of novelty then belongs only to new and 
varied combinations, and in that form it may be sustained, 
although with decreasing force, to the end of life. New 
scenes, new objects, new persons, and new aspects of life, con- 
stitute the attractions of travel. Novelty in incidents and 
events, is furnished by the transactions of life, and by the pages 
of story. Inventions in the Arts, and discoveries in Science, 
have the initial charm of novelty, as well as the interest of 
permanent utility. In Fine Art, whose end is pleasure, the 
powerful effects of novelty are earnestly invoked ; pleasurable 
surprises are expected of the artist in every department ; 
beauty must be enhanced by originality ; while the passion for 
change, uncontrolled, leads in the end to decadence. Last 
of all, in Fashion, novelty is supreme. Throughout the whole, 
but one rule prevails ; other things the same, the greater the 
novelty, the greater the pleasure. 

4. Next to Novelty is Variety, alternation, or change. 

The longer any stimulant has been remitted, the greater 
the impression on its renewal. Variety is a minor form of 
novelty. 

Oar happiness depends materially on the wise remission 
and variation of objects of delight. Mere change of pleasures 
will produce, within limits, a continuance of the pleasurable 
wave. Still, it is likely that periods of absolute indifference 
and quiet, if not of painful privation, should intervene, in 
order to maintain the highest zest of enjoyment. 

5. Surprise is a breach of expectation, and in addi- 
tion to mere Eelativitv, includes an element of Conflict. 

In Surprise, we are said to be startled. There is a shock 
of contradiction, which is always exciting. The excitement 
may be pleasurable, painful, or neutral, according to the case. 
As pure conflict, it would be a source of pain ; as a pungent 
stimulus, when the nerves are fresh, it may be pleasurable. 
Frequently, it is neither, being our typical instance of neutral 
emotion. 

The circumstances of the surprise may farther affect its 
character. When the occurrence is something better than 
we expected, there is an access of pleasure; when worse, 
of pain. 



WONDER.— LIBERTY. 231 

6. Wonder, or the Marvellous, is felt on the view of 
what rises above, or what falls beneath, our expectations. 
In the one case, it is an elating emotion, of a kindred with 
the Sublime ; on the other, it tends to depression, or else 
to contempt. 

The pleasing side of Wonder is due to what greatly 
transcends use and wont. It is an emotion of pure relativity. 

If we exclude the side of Littleness and Contempt, every- 
thing included in Wonder has its foundation either in pure 
Surprise, on the one hand, which is the shock of contradic- 
tion, or in the admiration of what is great or Sublime, on the 
other. The full account of this last emotion belongs to a 
much later stage of the exposition. 

7. The opposing couple — Eestraint and Liberty — 
are wholly referable to Conflict, combined with Eelativity. 

Eestraint is a case of conflicting impulses, and induces the 
depression due to conflict. It may have every variety of 
degree, being in all cases painful. The active spontaneity 
repressed by confinement ; the free vent of emotional diffusion 
arrested by dread of punishment ; the voluntary movements 
opposed ; the wishes thwarted, — are cases of intestine conflict, 
and of suffering. The pain induced has a speciality through 
its connexion with the active organs. In the more acute 
struggles, it is characterized as a * racking ' pain. 

There is a stimulating effect in opposition or conflict. 
Physically, we may suppose, that the sudden check to the 
nervous currents develops new activity in the brain : while, 
mentally, it is a fact of pregnant application, that hostility, 
not overpowering, rouses the energies to more than ordinary 
efforts. This is seen in every species of contest. Even the 
intellectual powers attain a more commanding success in the 
ardour of polemics. 

Under continued restraint, the system at length adapts 
itself to the situation. The taming down of impulses by 
steady suppression is one of the effects of habit, exemplified 
in moral discipline. (See Moral Habits.) 

8. Liberty is the correlative of Eestraint. It is the 
joyous outburst of feeling on the release from a foregone 
bondage, or on the cessation of a conflict. 

The liberation must occur while the restraint is still 
painful ; after the system has thoroughly accommodated it- 



232 EMOTIONS OF EELATIVITY. 

self, there is no reaction, and no flush of joyous elation. 
This fact has been remarked in those that have grown old in 
servitude, or have undergone long imprisonment. So in 
minds long fettered by subscription to creeds, even the desire 
of freedom is extinct. 

The character of the emotion of Liberty is an undefined 
elation, or intoxication, great according to the suddenness 
and the extent of the release, as well as the previous galling 
of the chain. Like all other feelings of relativity, it can be 
renewed only by a renewal of the pain of restraint, and, there- 
fore, is not an absolute addition to the sum of happiness, ex- 
cept to those already in bondage. 

A condition so familiar to every human being needs little 
farther to be said in the way of example or illustration. We 
may remark, however, that Liberty has an incalculable value, 
as including the scope given to individuals to seek their own 
happiness in their own way. 

The emotions of Power and Impotence are, to some 
extent, coincident with the foregoing, but have a far wider 
range. In consequence of their superior complication and 
great importance, they are discussed in a separate chapter. 

We have included, in the present chapter, feelings of a 
very elementary and very general kind, subsisting purely by 
the contrast of opposites. We might give a very wide illus- 
tration to the general principle, by adverting to the painful 
depression of burdens, labours, toils, present and prospective ; 
and to the joyous rebound upon the occasions of their miti- 
gation or abatement. 



CHAPTEK IV. 
EMOTION OF TERROR. 

1. The emotion of Terror originates in the apprehen- 
sion of coming evil. Its characters are — a. peculiar form 
of pain or misery ; the prostration of the active energies ; 
and the excessive hold of the related ideas on the mind. 

First, as to the Object, or cause— the apprehension of 
coming evil : — 



OCCASIONS OF TERROR. 233 

It does not appear that a present pain, without anticipa- 
tion, induces the state of fear. A person may have received 
a severe blow, but if it is done and past, although the smart 
remains, there is a total absence of terror. A present inflic- 
tion, as the beginning or foretaste of more to come, is pre- 
eminently a cause of the feeling. 

Sometimes the apprehension is of certain evil, as when 
some painful operation has to be gone through. The mere 
idea of pain is depressing, but the certainty of its approach 
gives a new character to the suffering. This situation, 
although, in one view, the most terrible, is yet the most favour- 
able to an effort of courageous endurance ; we are most ready 
to make an exertion, when we are sure it will be wanted. 

A second case is uncertain, but possible or probable, 
calamity, as in the chances of a storm, a severe illness, an 
equal contest for a great stake. This is a state of varying 
probabilities and fluctuating estimate. The distraction may 
be harassing in the extreme. 

Any new uncertainty is especially a cause of terror. We 
become habituated to a frequent danger, and realize the full 
force of apprehension only when the evil is one previously 
unknown. Such are— the terror caused by epidemics, the 
apprehensions from an unexperienced illness, the feeling of a 
recruit under fire. 

2. Terror, on the physical side, shows both a loss and 
a transfer of nervous energy. Power is suddenly and 
extensively withdrawn from the Organic processes, to be 
concentrated on certain Intellectual processes, and on the 
bodily Movements. 

The appearances may be distributed between effects of 
relaxation and effects of tension. 

The relaxation is seen, as regards the Muscles, in the dropping 
of the jaw, in the collapse overtaking all organs not specially 
excited, in tremblings of the lips and other parts, and in the 
loosening of the sphincters. 

Next as regards the Organic Processes and Viscera. The 
Digestion is everywhere weakened ; the flow of saliva is checked, 
the gastric secretion arrested (appetite failing), the bowels de- 
ranged. The Expiration is enfeebled. The heart and Circulation 
are disturbed ; there is either a flushing of the face, or a deadly 
pallor. The skin shows symptoms of derangement — the cold 
sweat, the altered odour of the perspiration, the creeping action 
that lifts the hair. The kidneys are directly or indirectly affected. 
The sexual organs feel the depressing influence. The secretion of 
milk in the mother's breasts is vitiated. 



234 EMOTION OF TERROR. 

The increased tension is shown in the stare of the eye and the 
raising of the scalp (by the occipito-frontalis muscle), in the in- 
flation of the nostril, the shrill cry, the violent movements of pro- 
tection or flight. The stare of the eye is to be taken as an exag- 
gerated fixing of the attention on the dreaded object ; and there 
concurs with it an equally intense occupation of the thoughts in 
the same exclusive direction. Whatever movements of expression, 
or of volition, are suggested by these thoughts, have a similar 
intensity. 

That such a physical condition should be accompanied 
with great depression is a consequence of the theory of plea- 
sure and pain. The prostration affects the most sensitive 
processes, the organic ; the increase of energy is in the move- 
ments, which have comparatively little sensibility. 

3. Mentally, Terror is a form of massive pain. 

The depression of a severe fright is known to be, for the 
time, overwhelming. If we apply the test of the submergence 
of pleasure, we shall reckon it one of the most formidable 
visitations of human suffering. Of its Speciality, we can only 
say that the great depression is accompanied with great ex- 
citement. 

As regards Volition, the pain would operate like any other 
pain to seek relief. It has been formerly remarked, that the 
generic tendency of all pain is to quench activity ; and this is 
more especially true when fear accompanies the pain. Hence, 
as a deterring instrument, and especially in subduing active 
opposition, terror is a great addition to mere pain ; nothing 
so effectually tames the haughty spirit into submission. Its 
defective side (even if we overlook the misery) is shown, if 
we endeavour, by means of it, to induce great and persevering 
exertions, the discharge of multifarious duties ; the waste of 
power being incompatible with anything arduous. Slave 
labour is notoriously unproductive. 

With regard to the Intellect, the characters of the emotion 
are very marked. The concentration of energy in the percep- 
tions and the allied intellectual trains, gives an extraordinary 
impressiveness to the objects and circumstances of the feeling. 
In a house believed to be haunted, every sound is listened to 
with avidity ; every breath of wind is interpreted as the ap- 
proach of the dreaded spirit. Hence, for securing attention 
to a limited subject, the feeling is highly efficacious. 

Terror, in its intellectual excitement, affords the extreme 
instance of the fixed idea, or the persistence of an image or 
intellectual train, against the forces of the will and the in- 



SPECIES OF TERROR. 235 

tellect combined. An impending danger monopolizes the 
thoughts. The protracted forms of fear expressed by anxiety, 
watchfulness, care, — engross the intellect, to the exclusion of 
liberalizing studies. 

The influence of Fear on Belief, follows from its other 
characters. The tendency is to give way to the suggestions 
of danger, and to bar out all considerations on the other side. 

4. The following are the chief Species of Terror. 

(1) The case of the Lower Animals. 

In them, we have manifest traces of timidity, as an addi- 
tion to mere pain. In the deterring smart of the whip, there 
might b« nothing beyond the effect of pain on the will ; while 
the threat of it is still pain in the idea. The evidence of fear 
is seen in the exaggerated activity inspired by trifling causes ; 
the surrender of great advantages to small risks. Still more is 
the state shown in the dread of what has never done any 
harm : the dread of the human presence, in so many animals ; 
the dread of other animals before experience of their disposi- 
tion ; and the liability to be disturbed by slight commotions, 
noises, and strange appearances. 

(2) Fear in Children. 

The mental system in infancy is highly susceptible, not 
merely to pain, but to shocks and surprises. • Any great ex- 
citement has a perturbing effect allied to fear. After the 
child has contracted a familiarity with the persons and things 
around it, it manifests unequivocal fear on the occurrence of 
any thing very strange. The grasp of an unknown person 
often gives a fright. This early experience very much re- 
sembles the manifestations habitual to the inferior animals. 
At the more advanced stage, where known evils are 
to be encountered, if the child knows that it has to go 
through something painful, the feeling is of the usual or 
typical kind, modified only by the feebleness of the counter- 
actives, and the consequent vehemence of the manifestations. 

(3) Slavish Terror. 

Slavish terror takes its rise under a superior unlimited m 
power, capricious in conduct, or extreme in severity. The 
possibility of some great infliction is itself necessarily a cause 
of terror. The uncertainty that one knows not how to 
meet, or provide against, is still more unhinging. It is not 
possible to preserve composure under a capricious rule, except 
by being in a state of preparation for the very worst. The 



236 EMOTION OF TERROR. 

Stoical prescriptions of Epictetus, himself a slave, are in 
harmony with such a situation. Another circumstance tending 
to beget slavish fear is the conscious neglect of duty on the 
part of the inferior, he at the same time being unprepared 
calmly to face the consequences. The state of slavery is a 
state of terror from the power and arbitrary dispositions of 
the master; the free-born servant has mainly to fear the 
effects of his own remissness. 

(4) Forebodings of disaster generally., 

The usual form of Fear may be expressed as the Fore- 
boding of evil or disaster, more or less certain. No human 
being is wholly exempt from this condition ; it is a standing 
dish in the banquet of life. There is a possibility of en- 
countering evil with the minimum of fear, of bearing the pain 
by itself, without the unhinging apprehensions ; a lofty ideal 
realized only by a favoured few. 

The term Anxiety generally implies an element of fear, 
although it may be used when there is nothing intended but 
the rational and measured avoidance of pain, which is the 
true antithesis of fear. Suspicion expresses the influence of 
the fears on Belief. It is a state wherein trifling incidents are 
read as the certain index of great calamities. More especially, 
it points to exaggerated estimates of the motives and inten- 
tions of other men. To be suspicious is a part of the 
general temper of timidity. Panic is an outburst of terror 
affecting a multitude in common, and heightened by sympathy 
or infection. It has ruined many armies, otherwise equipped 
for victory. It renders a populace utterly uncontrollable in 
great emergencies. 

Like any other emotion, there may be a permanent asso- 
ciation between the state of Fear and the objects that have 
often called it forth, or have been connected with it. The 
mother is in habitual trepidation about a sick, or wayward, 
or incapable child. Even when there is no cause for alarm, 
a shade of terror is apt to be present. This has been called 
an Affection of Fear, as we have an Affection of Love, and an 
Affection of Anger (Hatred). The solicitude of a woman 
about her person and appearance, or of a man of genius for 
his fame, is an affection of fear. The same fact is expressed 
by Anxiety and Care. 

(5) The Terrors of Superstition. 

Our position in the world contains the sources of fear. 
The vast powers of nature dispose of our lives and happiness 



DISTRUST OF OUR FACULTIES. 237 

with irresistible might and awful aspect. Ages had elapsed 
ere the knowledge of law and uniformity, prevailing among 
those powers, had been arrived at by the human intellect. 
The profound ignorance of primitive man was the soil wherein 
his early conceptions and theories sprang up; and the fear 
inseparable from ignorance gave them their character. The 
essence of superstition is expressed by the definition of fear. 
An altogether exaggerated estimate of things, the ascription 
of evil agency to the most harmless objects, and false appre- 
hensions everywhere, are among the attributes of the super- 
stitious man. 

(6) The Distrust of our Faculties in new operations. 

In all untried situations, in the exercise of imperfect 
powers, and in the commencement of enterprises where we 
but partly see our way, we are liable to the quakings of 
terror. This is one of the miseries of early years. In great 
posts, where every movement affects the happiness of multi- 
tudes, the sensitive mind will always have a certain amount 
of apprehension. 

One remarkable form of this distrust is the being Abashed 
before a strange face, a new company, or a great multitude. 
This is a reproduction, in manhood, of childish fear, but the 
circumstances are somewhat altered. After we have seen some- 
thing of the world, we are aware of the possibilities of evil that 
lie in the compass of every human being ; every new encoun- 
ter is attended with dread, until experience gives assurance; we 
are apt to regard every man an enemy till we prove him a friend. 

It might be a question as regards shyness before strangers, 
whether the more instinctive form of dread, shown in early 
infancy, does not cling to us in later years, requiring a har- 
dening process to dispel it. If anything seemed to imply 
such a weakness, it would be the awful sensation of first ap- 
pearing, as a speaker or performer, before a large assembly. 
Probably, however, there is enough in the evil possibilities of 
the case to account for the excessive perturbation of most per- 
sons so situated. 

The world's censure may be looked at merely as so 
much pain, and estimated accordingly, or it may be accom- 
panied with the agitation of fear. Being somewhat uncertain 
and capricious, as well as potent for evil, it is liable to this 
aggravation of its severity. 

(7) The Fear of Death. 

In the fear of Death, we have two elements. The extinc- 



238 EMOTION OF TERROR. 

tion of life's pleasures, interests, and hopes, is looked forward 
to with apprehension according to the zest for these : in the 
young and vigorous, the misery of the prospect is extreme ; a 
youthful culprit sentenced to execution is heart-rending in 
his tones of anguish. The other element is the dread Un- 
known, which operates variously according to a man's temper, 
conscience, and education. 

5. Terror is farther illustrated by its Counteractives 
and Opposites — the sources of Courage. 

These are: — (1) Physical vigour of constitution; which 
resists the withdrawal of the blood from the organic functions. 

(2) The Active or Energetic Temperament ; or the presence, 
in large quantity, of what the shock of fear tends to destroy. 

(3) The Sanguine Temperament ; which, being a copious 
fund of emotional vigour, shown in natural buoyancy, fulness 
of animal spirits, manifestations of warm sociability, and the 
like, is also the antithesis of depressing agencies — whether 
mere pain, or the aggravations of fear. (4) Force of Will ; 
arising from the power of the motives to equanimity. (5) In- 
tellectual Force ; which refuses to be overpowered by the 
fixed idea of an object of fright, and so serves to counter- 
balance the state of dread. (6) In so far as terror is grounded 
on Ignorance, the remedy is Knowledge. The victories gained 
over superstition, in the later ages, have been due to the more 
exact acquaintance with nature. Pericles, instructed in 
Astronomy under Anaxagoras, rescued his army from the 
panic of an eclipse, by a familiar illustration of its true cause. 

6. The Beaction, or Belief, from Terror, like any other 
rebound from a depressing condition, is cheering or 
hilarious. 

This is the source of the cheerfulness of the state of con- 
fidence, security, assurance ; a pleasure purely relative to the 
depression of fear. 

7. The uses of Terror in government, and in Educa- 
tion, are easily understood. 

The discipline of pain, if reinforced by terror, is still 
more efficacious in subduing obduracy of mind. Pride, inde- 
pendence, self-reliance, are incompatible with the perturbation 
of fear. 

8. The employment of the passion of Fear in Art de- 
mands explanation. 



FEAR IN ART. 239 

The essence of Fear is misery, and the essence of Art is 
pleasure. But incidental to Fear, is a certain amount of ex- 
citement, which may be so regulated as to have the pungency 
without the pain of the emotion. Mere sympathetic terrors, 
and still more such as are wholly fictitious, attain this happy 
medium. There is, nevertheless, a limit ; which has been 
overstepped both by Shakespeare and by Walter Scott. 

A slight fear, with speedy relief, may be stimulating at 
all times. To robust constitutions, even serious danger is 
welcomed for its excitement. 



CHAPTEK V. 
TENDEE EMOTION. 

1. Tenderness is a pleasurable emotion, variously 
stimulated, whose effect is to draw human beings into 
mutual embrace. 

The Objects, or causes of tenderness, are chiefly found 
in connexion with human beings and other sentient crea- 
tures ; towards whom alone it can be properly manifested. 

The exciting causes or stimulants of the feeling are, more 
particularly, the following , — 

First, the massive, or voluminous Pleasures. Under this 
head, we have already included slow movements, repose after 
exercise, repletion, agreeable warmth, soft contacts, gentle 
and voluminous sounds, mild sunshine. Such pleasures are 
known to soothe or calm down the activity, as opposed to the 
acute and pungent pleasures ; they also incite tender feeling. 

In the next place, very great pleasures incline to the ten- 
der outburst. Under the agitation of joy, an affectionate 
warmth is manifested, demanding a response. Occasions of 
rejoicing are celebrated by social gatherings and hospitality. 

Thirdly, Pains are among the causes of tenderness. This 
seems a contradiction and a paradox ; but in reality it is con- 
sistent with all the characters of the feeling. There would be 
no marvel in calling a pleasure to our aid on occasion of pain : 
the marvel is that, at that moment, the system is prepared to 
yield an assuagement merely because there is a want. It 



240 TENDEK EMOTION. 

lias to be explained why this emotion in particular should 
be so ready to burst out in times of suffering. We can 
best understand its occurring in connexion with pains of the 
affections. 

Fourthly, There are certain more local and special causes 
that deserve to be mentioned, as farther illustrating the feeling 
and its physical embodiments. The touch of the breast, the 
neck, the mouth, and the hand, and the movements of the 
upper members, are allied to this feeling ; as the contact and 
the movements of the inferior parts of the body are concerned 
in sexual excitement. The reason is to be found in the 
vicinity of the organic functions peculiar to each of the 
feelings. Farther, there are certain special stimulants in the 
higher senses. In Hearing, the high and mellow note, 
occurring sometimes in the wail of grief, and adopted in 
pathetic address, has a touching efficacy. By virtue of this 
coincidence, too early in its date to be the result of mere 
association, (and probably a mode of voluminous sensation), 
there is a power in the outburst of grief to affect others with 
tenderness. The ' dying fair is pathetic, as a mode of soft aud 
pleasurable feeling. Finally, in Sight, the sensations of lustre 
have a like efficacy. The influence of the clear drop, ap- 
pearing on the moistened eye, and inducing the secretion in 
the eye of the beholder, is probably more than mere lustre ; 
it adds the stimulus to self-consciousness, and possibly an 
effect of association besides. 

The alliance of tenderness with inaction renders it the 
emotion of weakness ; whence the experience or the view of 
weakness very readily suggests it. The helplessness of 
infancy, of age, of sickness, of destitution, caDs it forth. 
Even among inanimate things, slender and fragile forms, 
after being personified, are sources of tender feeling, and are 
thence considered objects of beauty. In Burke's theory of 
the Beautiful, this was made the central feature. 

2. The physical side of the Tender Emotion specially 
involves (1) Touch, (2) the Lachrymal Organs, and (3) 
the movements of the Pharynx. 

(1) The soft extended contact, the source of a voluminous 
sensation of touch, as a physical fact, is both the beginning and 
the end of the tender feeling. One might suspect a glandular, 
as well as a purely tactile, effect in this contact ; not only is 
the skin a vast secreting organ, but there is something in the 
feeling strongly analogous to the organic or visceral sensi- 



PHYSICAL ACCOMPANIMENTS OF TENDERNESS. 241 

bilities. The remark is farther confirmed by the considera- 
tion of the next accompaniment. 

(2) The Lachrymal Organs — Gland and Sac — are specifi- 
cally affected nnder the tender feeling. We must assume two 
stages or degrees of this actioD ; a gentle, healthy flow, 
accompanied with genial sensibility, and, in the case of great 
stimulation, a violent, profuse flow, from excessive action 
and congestion of the brain, under pain or extreme joy. 

(3) The movements of the Pharynx, or bag of the throat, 
the muscular cavity where the food is swallowed, are suscep- 
tible to the tender feeling. In violent grief, these muscles 
are convulsed, so as to be unable to swallow ; in the gentler 
degrees, they are the seat of a sensibility characteristic of the 
emotion. Considering that these muscles are but the com- 
mencement of the muscular fibres of the alimentary canal, we 
may presume, from analogy, that the alimentary canal as a 
whole is affected under the feeling. The phrase ' bowels of 
compassion' would point to this conclusion. 

In women, we must add, as an adjunct of tender feeling, 
the mammary secretion, an eminent addition to the sources 
of the feeling in organic sensibility. 

3. The link of sequence, physical and mental, between 
the stimulants of tender feeling and the manifestations, is 
to be sought in the common character of the two sets of 
phenomena. 

It would be in accordance with the Law of Self-conserva- 
tion, that a pleasurable wave should extend itself, by reflexion 
from all the sources of the same emotion. If the warm em- 
brace is a cause of the feeling, the feeling, otherwise sug- 
gested, would seek its increase and consummation in the 
embrace, as well as in the other responsive tokens of tender- 
ness — the smile, the glance, the tones, the sympathies of other 
beings. 

The same principle is seen in the diffusive manifestations 
of feeling generally. Joyful emotion prompts to the musical 
outburst that would, of itself, be an inspiration of joy. 

When pain is a stimulant, the motive still is to have 
recourse to something pleasurable. This is not the only 
resort on an occasion of pain. In some states, Anger, or 
the pleasure of malevolence, is called to aid ; the circum- 
stances being natural vigour, an irascible habit, and the 
absence of genial sympathies. When tenderness is invoked, 
the circumstances are usually extreme weakness, the tender 
16 



242 TENDER EMOTION. 

disposition, or the connexion of the pain with some tender 
relationship. 

4. On the mental side, Tenderness is a feeling, in 
quality pleasurable, in degree massive and not acute. Its 
remarkable speciality (which may be a consequence of 
the foregoing properties) is its connexion with tranquillity 
and repose. 

It is the character of a voluminous excitement to affect 
lightly a large surface, being thus a more enduring and sus- 
tainable source of pleasure. This is pre-eminently the nature 
of the Tender Feeling, and constitutes its great value in 
human life. It is a tranquillizer under morbid excitement, a 
soothing power in pain, and a means of enjoyment when the 
forces of the system are at the lowest ebb, or in abeyance for 
the time. 

As regards Volition, the tender feeling prompts to efforts 
for its own fruition, like other pleasures, according to their 
degree. Its tranquillizing influence upon morbid excitement 
is the substitution of a new state, such as, from its occupying 
the mind strongly and agreeably, is a power to displace other 
states. 

The Intellectual peculiarity of tenderness follows from the 
others. Being easily sustained, it has in a high degree the 
property of persistence, and recoverability in idea. 

The readiness to form permanent associations, under the 
law of Contiguity, is a further extension of the intellectual 
property. The feeling is one superadded to proper sensuous 
charm, as terror is an addition to mere pain ; but when often 
excited in connexion with an object of sense, it is kindled at 
the mere mention or suggestion of that object ; such habitual 
or associated Tenderness being the meaning of Affection. 

5. The mixed characters of the feeling farther illus- 
trate its main feature. 

The operation upon the Will in pursuit, corresponding to 
the degree of the pleasure and the retentiveness combined, is 
shown in the energies put forth in favour of objects of affec- 
tion and tender regard. 

As Desire, this emotion maintains its consistency. In an 
easily sustainable feeling, the mere idea contains a large 
amount of the pleasure ; ' the imagination of the feast 7 is in 
some degree satisfying. Love is often satisfied with objects 
purely ideal. 



MATERNAL RELATIONSHIP. 243 

The Control of the Attention and the Trains of thought, 
even in the ordinary degrees of the feeling, would naturally 
be great, while, in the intenser forms, it is apt to be overwhelm- 
ing. The same can be said of the allied effect on Belief; the 
partialities of love, affection, and friendship, are counted upon 
as laws of human nature. 

SPECIES OF THE TENDER EMOTION. 

6. It is the nature of the Emotion to vent itself mainly 
on human beings. 

A human person combines the stimulants beyond any other 
object. The sensuous exterior, the voice and movements pur- 
posely attuned, largely arouse the feeling, while the response 
supposes another personality. 

The companionable animals are within the compass of the 
feeling. 

The Family Growp. 

7. The relation of Mother and Offspring deserves to 
rank first. 

The infant, as a sensuous object, has all the properties that 
stimulate the feeling. The skin soft and pure, the eye fresh 
and clear, the outline rounded ; the diminutive size and help- 
lessness ; the interest of the comparison showing so much like- 
ness to the full-grown individual ; the action so different and 
yet so similar, — render the child an impressive object of ten- 
derness to every one. And in the case of the mother, there is 
superadded a powerful element of regard, arising out of the 
original relation to herself, and the special engagement of her 
energies in supporting the infant's existence. Such a com- 
bination of self-interest and the associations of a strong 
solicitude would, under any circumstances, stamp an object 
on the mind ; a house, or a garden, so situated grows upon 
the feelings of the possessor. When, however, the object is a 
human being of the age most fitted to act on the tender sus- 
ceptibilities, we can easily understand how this relationship 
becomes the crowning instance of intense personal regard. 

The full explanation of maternal love involves the fact of 
Sympathy, which is distinct from proper Tender feeling, 
although fusing with it. 

The Paternal relationship contains many of the same 
elements. There is less of personal contact, but the ideal 
feelings are no less strong, while the influence of contrast and 
the sentiment of protectorship may be even greater. 



244 TENDER EMOTION. 

8. The relationship of the Sexes, founded in the pro- 
creative constitution, is one of Tenderness. 

The pleasure connected with the intercourse of the sexes 
is itself a stimulant of tenderness. There is, besides, that dif- 
ference of personal conformation, which makes the one sex a 
variety as it were to the other, possessing a distinct order of 
attractions. There can be no doubt of the extensive working 
of this principle, which puts a limit to the influence of the 
most perfect forms, and the highest excellence. The merits 
that we carry about with us are apt to pall upon our taste, and 
the objects that interest us must be something different, even 
although inferior. The greatest affinities grow out of the 
stronger contrasts ; with this important explanation, that the 
contrast must not be of hostile qualities, but of supplemental 
ones. The one person must not love what the other hates, 
but the two must mutually supply each other's felt deficiencies. 
Affections grounded on disparity, so qualified, exist between 
individuals of the same sex. The Platonic friendship was 
manifested chiefly between men of different ages, and in the 
relation of master and pupil. But in the two sexes there is a 
standing contrast, the foundation of a more universal interest. 
The ideal beauty arising from conformation is on the side of 
the woman : the interest of the masculine presence lies moi'e 
in the associations of power. 

The Benevolent Affections. 

9. In Benevolence, the main constituent is Sympathy, 
which is not to be confounded with Tenderness. 

It will be seen more fully afterwards, that, in Sympathy, 
the essential point is to become possessed of the pains and 
pleasures of another being. Now, the tender feeling, or love, 
greatly aids this occupation of mind with the feelings of 
others, but is not the sole agent concerned. Another power, 
of a more intellectual kind, is demanded. 

10. Sympathy not being necessarily a source of plea- 
sure, the Pleasures of Benevolence are incidental and in- 
direct. 

The following considerations are to be taken into account, 
in resolving this matter. 

In the first place, love or tender feeling, is by its nature 
pleasurable, but does not necessarily cause us to seek the good 
of the object farther than is needful to gratify ourselves in the 



PLEASUEES OF BENEVOLENCE. 245 

indulgence of the feeling. It is as purely self-seeking as any- 
other pleasure, and makes no enquiry concerning the feelings 
of the beloved personality. 

In the second place, in a region of the mind quite apart 
from the tender emotion, arises* the principle of Sympathy, or 
the prompting to take on the pleasures and pains of other 
beings, and act on them as if they were our own. Instead of 
being a source of pleasure to us, the primary operation of 
sympathy is to make us surrender pleasure and to incur pains. 

Thirdly, The engagement of the mind by objects of affec- 
tion gives them, in preference to others, the benefit of our 
sympathy : and hence we are specially impelled to work for 
advancing their pleasures and alleviating their pains. It does 
not follow that we are made happier by the circumstance ; on 
the contrary, we may be involved in painful and heavy labours. 

Fourthly, The reciprocation of sympathy and good offices 
is a great increase of pleasure on both sides; being, indeed, 
under favourable circumstances, one of the greatest sources of 
human delight. 

Fifthly, It is the express aim of a well-constituted society, 
if possible, never to let good offices pass unreciprocated. If 
the immediate object of them cannot or will not reciprocate 
in full, as when we relieve the destitute or the worthless, 
others bestow upon us approbation and praise. Of course, if 
benevolent actions, instead of being a tax, were self-rewarding, 
such acknowledgment would have no relevance. 

Sixthly, There is a pleasure in the sight of happy beings, 
and we naturally feel a certain elation in being instrumental 
to this agreeable effect. 

11. Compassion, or Pity, means Sympathy with dis- 
tress, and usually supposes an infusion of Tender Feeling. 

The effective aid to a sufferer springs from sympathy pro- 
per, and may be accompanied, or not, with tender manifesta- 
tions. Many persons, little given to the melting mood, are 
highly sympathetic in the way of doing services. Others 
bestow sympathy, in the form of mere tender effusion, with 
perhaps little else. To be full of this last kind of sympathy 
is the proper meaning of Sentimentality. 

12. The receipt of favours inspires Gratitude ; of which 
the foundation is sympathy, and the ruling principle, the 
complex idea of Justice. 

Pleasure conferred upon us, by another human being, im- 



246 TENDER EMOTION. 

mediately prompts the tender response. With whatever power 
of sympathy we possess, we enter into the pleasures and 
pains of the person that has thus engaged our regards. The 
highest form of gratitude, which leads us to reciprocate bene- 
fits and make acknowledgments, in some proportion to the 
benefits conferred, is an application of the principle of Justice. 

13. In the Equal relationships of life, there is room for 
the mutual play of Benevolence and Gratitude. 

In brotherhood, friendship, co-membership of the same 
society, occasional inequalities give room for mutual good 
offices. In the tenderness thus developed, there is a bond of 
attraction to counterwork the rivalries and repellant egotisms 
of mankind. 

14. The operation of Sympathy renders the mere 
spectacle of Generosity a stimulant of Tender Feeling. 

This is one great producing cause of the fictitious tender- 
ness made use of in Fine Art. Sympathy interests us in 
other beings ; their pains and pleasures become to a certain 
extent ours ; and the benefits imparted to them can raise a 
tender wave in us. The more striking manifestations of 
generosity, as when an injured person or an enemy renders 
good for evil, are touching even to the unconcerned spectator. 

15. The Lower Animals are subjects of tender feeling, 
and of mutual attachment. 

Their total dependence forbids rivalry ; while their sen- 
suous charms, vivacity, their contrast to ourselves, and their 
services, are able to evoke tenderness and affection. 

The reciprocal attachment of animals to men, so much 
greater than they can maintain to their own species, shows 
that the sense of favours received is able to work in them the 
genuine tender sentiment. All that the feeling can amount 
to, in the absence of the totally distinct aptitude of sympathy, 
is seen in them, very much as it appears in early human 
infancy. 

16. There is a form of tenderness manifested towards 
Inanimate things. 

By associated pleasurable emotion, we come to experience 
towards our various possessions, and local surroundings, a 
certain warmth of the nature of an attachment. It is from 
their original power to give pleasure, that these things work 
upon the springs of tenderness ; but, as they are unsuited to 



INANIMATE THINGS. 247 

its proper consummation, the indulgence of the feeling is 
imaginary or fictitious. The personifying impulse here comes 
to our aid ; and, by going through some of the forms, we ex- 
perience the reality, of tender regard. 

Sorrow. 

17. Sorrow is pain from the loss of objects of affection ; 
the tender feeling becoming a means of consolation. 

Affection supposes a habitual reference to another person, 
an intertwining of thoughts, interests, pleasures, and conduct, 
extensive in proportion to the intimacy of the relationship. 
To be deprived of such a one, is to lose a main stay of exist- 
ence ; on the principle of Self- conservation the loss is misery. 
The giving way of anything that we have been accustomed to 
depend upon, leaves us in a state of helplessness and wretched- 
ness, till we go through the process of building up new sup- 
ports. 

The lower animals are capable of sorrow. The dog will 
sometimes pine and die of absence from his master : being 
unable to endure the privation, or to reconstitute a bond of 
attachment. 

It is, however, the characteristic of the tender feeling to 
flow readily, on the prompting of such occasions, and to 
supply, in its almost inexhaustible fulness, a large measure of 
consolation. This is the genial and healing side of sorrow. 
It is a satisfaction not afforded, in the same degree, by other 
losses, — by failure in worldly aspirations, by the baulking of 
revenge, or by the incurring of an ill name. 

18. The Social and Moral bearings of tenderness are 
important, although the best part of the effect is due to 
the co-operation of Sympathy. 

Anything tending to give us pleasure in other beings 
makes us court society, and accommodate ourselves to others. 
The cultivation of the modes and expression of tenderness 
belongs to the arts of civilized man. 

Admiration and Esteem. 

19. Admiration is the response to pleasurable feeling 
aroused by Excellence or superiority ; a feeling closely 
allied to love. 

The occasions of admiration are various and complicated, 
and will be resumed under the Sublime (^Esthetic Emotions). 



248 TENDER EMOTION. 

What we notice here is that the feeling is one readily passing 
into tenderness; the reason being not solely that it is a 
pleasure, but also that it supposes another sentient being to 
receive the admiring expression. 

The frequent transition from Admiration to Love shows 
the community of the two feelings : an admiration without 
some portion of kindly regard is an exceptional and artificial 
state, which it takes a certain effort of mind to entertain; as 
in contemplating an Alcibiades or a Marlborough. 

20. Esteem refers to the performance of essential 
Duties, whose neglect is attended with evil. 

Our Esteem is moved by useful, rather than by shining, 
qualities. As we are painfully aware of the consequences of 
individual remissness in the duties and conduct of life, there is 
a cheering re-action in witnessing the opposite conduct. It is a 
rebound from pain not unmixed with apprehension, and being 
connected with persons, it falls into the strain of tender feeling. 
We esteem the prudent man, the just man, the self-sufficing 
or independent man; and our agreeable sentiment has its 
spring in the possible evils from the absence of these qualities, 
and is greater as our sense of those evils is greater. 

Both Admiration and Esteem are accompanied with 
Deference, a mode of gratitude to the persons that have 
evoked those sentiments. 

Veneration — the Religious Sentiment, 

21. The Religious Sentiment is constituted by the Tender 
Emotion, together with Fear, and the Sentiment of the 
Sublime. 

We must premise that the generic feature of Religion is 
Government, or authority ; the specific difference is the 
authority of a Supernatural rule. It may thus be distin- 
guished from mere Poetic Emotions, which are so largely 
incorporated with it. 

The composition of the feeling is expressed in the familiar 
conjunction — ' wonder, love, and awe.' 

(1) The vastness of the presiding power of the world, in 
so far as ifc can be brought home, is a source of the elation of 
the Sublime. The great difficulty here is in connexion with 
the unseen and spiritual essence, which requires the sensuous 
grandeurs of the actual world, and the highest stretch of 
poetic diction, as aids to bring it within the compass of 
imagination. 



ELEMENTS OF VENERATION. 249 

(2) Oar position of weakness, dependence, and uncer- 
tainty, brings us under the dominion of Fear. This feeling 
varies with our own conscious misdeeds, as compared with 
the exactions of the supreme Governor. The secondary uses 
of Religion, in the hands of the politician, are supposed to be 
favoured by the terror-inspiring severity of the creed; a 
weapon fraught with dangers. The autocrat of Russia was 
unable to induce even his soldiers to dispense with the Lenten 
fasting, during the ravages of cholera. 

In almost all views of Religion, the Sense of Dependence 
is given as the central fact. 

(8) Love or Tender Emotion enters into the feeling, 
according as the Deity is viewed in a benign aspect. There 
is a certain incompatibility between tenderness and fear ; 
indeed, in any close relation between governor and governed, 
a perfect mutual affection is rare and exceptional ; the .putting 
forth of authority chills tenderness. 

A great and beneficent being might be conceived, and is 
conceived, by many, as bestowing favours without imposing 
restraints, or inflicting punishments. It is to such a being 
that tender and adoring sentiment might arise in purity, or 
without the admixture of fear. The benefactor is in that 
case separated from the ruler, and the essential character of 
Religion is no longer present. 

Veneration, in the terrestrial and human acceptation, is a 
sentiment displayed, not so much to active and present 
authority, as to power that is now passing or past. It 
mingles with the conception of greatness the pathos of mor- 
tality and decay. It is the tribute to the memory of the 
departed, and is sometimes expressed by rites of a semi- 
religious character. The followers of Confucius in China, 
who have no religion, in the proper sense of the term, join in 
the periodical observances of the Chinese in honour of their 
departed ancestry. 

Reverence is a name for high admiration and deferential 
regard, without implying authority. We may express reve- 
rence and feel deference to a politician, a philanthropist, or a 
man of learning or science. 



250 EMOTIONS OF SELF. 



CHAPTEE VI. 
EMOTIONS OF SELF. 

1. The term ' Self is not used here in any of its wide 
acceptations, but is a brief title for comprehending two 
allied groups of Feelings — the one expressed by the names 
Self-gratulation, Self-complacency, Self-esteem, Pride ; the 
other by Love of Approbation, Vanity, Desire of Fame, or 
Glory. 

The comprehensive words Selfishness, Self-seeking, Ego- 
tism, imply the collective interests of the individual, as ex- 
cluding, or simply as not including, the interests of others. 
There are, therefore, many forms of egotism besides what are 
to be now treated of. For example, the love of Power (not 
here included) is at the extreme pole of Egotism ; being 
scarcely, if at all compatible, with a regard to others. Many 
feelings are in themselves purely egotistic, but their enjoy- 
ment is not complete without a social alliance, such as Tender- 
ness and Sexual feeling ; these are sympathetic by accident, 
if not by design. 

SELF-GRATULATION AND SELF-ESTEEM. 

2. This is the feeling experienced when we behold in 
ourselves the qualities that, seen in others, call forth ad- 
miration, reverence, love ; or esteem. 

Admiration, as above stated, combines the elation of the 
sublime with tenderness, and is, hi favourable circumstances, 
highly pleasurable. Any fresh display of excellence, of a kind 
that we are able to appreciate, fills us with delight, part of 
which may be set down to the indulgence of the admiring 
sentiment. 

In the present case, we have to consider what change is 
effected, when we ourselves are the admired personality. The 
pleasure, in such circumstances, is usually much greater. 
The question arises, is it the same sentiment, with assignable 
modifications, or is it a new feeling of the mind ? 



SELF-COMPLACENCY A MODE OF TENDEKNESS. 251 

3. The physical side of the feeling presents an ex- 
pression of marked pleasure, serene and placid, such as 
might accompany tender feeling. 

There is nothing in this expression to give a cine to the 
nltimate analysis of the feeling, althongh qnite consistent 
with the view to be given of it from the mental side. 

4. On the mental side, we may consider self-com- 
placency as a mode of tender feeling, with self for the 
object ; the pleasure caused by it, is the pleasure of admir- 
ing an object of tender affection. 

Let us suppose, first, the case of admiration drawn forth 
to a beloved person, as when a parent is called to witness the 
merits, virtues, or charms of a child. There is here obviously 
a double current of pleasurable excitement ; the admiration 
wakens the affection into active exercise, and the aroused 
affection quickens the admiration. It is not to be believed 
that the pleasure of admiring one that we are interested in, 
from other causes, should be only the same as towards a per- 
son wholly iu different. 

Now, there are various facts to show, that every human 
being is disposed to contract a habitual self-tenderness, so 
as to become, each to one's self, an object of affection. 

It is towards other personalities that we have the full and 
primary experience of the tender feeling, but if it can extend 
in any form to inanimate things, much more should it arise 
towards our own personality. When, besides the enjoyment 
of pleasures, and the pursuit of ends, we direct our attention 
upon self as the subject of all those pleasures and pursuits, 
we may be affected with a superadded tender feeling, which 
will in time grow into an affection. The attentions and care 
of the mother to the child greatly contribute to the strength 
of her affection ; the sickly child is often the most beloved. 
A similar round of attentions and care, consciously bestowed 
on self, have a similar tendency ; we may in this way, if we 
indulge ourselves in self-consciousness, become the object of 
self-tenderness, growing into self-affection (a feeling not to be 
confounded with what is commonly called self-love). 

It is possible for the regards to take a direction so exclu- 
sively outward, to be so far absorbed with other personalities, 
and purely external concerns, as not to become habitual to- 
wards self. In such a situation, the self-complacent senti- 
ment would be dried up ; the sight of excellence in certain 



252 ' EMOTIONS OF SELF. 

other persons might have a warm and pleasing efficacy, while 
in self it would awaken but a feeble response. Snch a total 
absence of self-gratulation may be rare, because the self-con- 
scious tendency can hardly be nullified by any outward at- 
tractions ; yet there are wide variations of degree in the feel- 
ing, as there are great differences in the choice of objects of 
tender concern. 

If such be the derivation of the sentiment, its characters 
are plain. It is a pleasure of great amount, allied to the pas- 
sive side of our being, and possessing all the recommendations 
of the tender feeling. It may subsist in a condition of weak- 
ness and prostration ; it is easily sustained and recovered in 
the ideal form ; if based on a large emotional nature, it may 
afford a copious well-spring of enjoyment. 

It has the same high intellectual efficiency, as the original 
form of tenderness ; directing the attention, controlling the 
thoughts, and inducing beliefs in conformity with itself. 

5. The more usual Specific Fokms of the feeling have 
received names in common language. 

Self-complacency expresses the act of deriving pleasure 
from mentally revolving one's own merits, excellencies, pro- 
ductions, and imposing adjuncts. It also disposes us to court 
the sympathy and attention of others, by verbal recitals to 
the same effect. 

Self-esteem and Self-conceit imply a settled opinion of 
our own merits, followed up with what is implied in esteem, 
namely, preference to others, on a comparison. This preference 
is shown most conspicuously in the feature of Self-confidence ; 
which may be a sober and correct estimate of our own powers, 
but may also be an estimate heightened by self-tenderness or 
affection. In some characters, of great natural abundance of 
energy, active or emotional, the feeling is so well sustained as 
to dispense with the confirmation of other men's opinions. This 
is the respectable, but unamiable, quality of Self-sufficingness. 

Self-respect and Pride suggest the feeling as a motive to 
conduct. Having formed a high estimate of self in certain 
respects, we are restrained from lowering that estimate by 
inconsistent conduct. The skilled workman has a pride in 
not sending out an inferior production. The man of upright 
dealings, if he is consciously proud of his own integrity, has 
an additional motive for strictness in acting up to it. It is 
the sense of honour, viewed as self-honour ; and may co-exist 
with regard to the sentiments of others. 



HUMILITY. — SELF-ABASEMENT. 253 

Self-pity — being sorry for one's self — is a genuine mani- 
festation of the feeling before us. It is unmistakeable as a 
mode of tender feeling, and yet it ends in self; being a strong 
confirmation of the foregoing analysis. 

Emulation, and the feeling of Superiority, express the 
emotion, as it arises in the act of measuring ourselves with 
others. All excellence requires a comparison, open or im- 
plied ; when the comparison is openly made, and, when we 
are distinctly aware of our advantage over another person, 
and enjoy the pleasure of that situation, the feeling is called 
sense of Superiority, and the impulse to gain it, Emulation. 
Envy is the feeling of inferiority, with a malevolent sentiment 
towards the rival. 

6. There are well-marked forms of Pain, in obverse 
correspondence to the pleasures now described. 

Most amiable and estimable, on this side, is the virtue 
named Humility and Modesty, which, without supposing self- 
depreciation, implies that, for the sake of others, we abstain 
from indulging self-complacent sentiment. It is a species of 
generosity , in renouncing a portion of self-esteem, to allow a 
greater share of esteem to others. 

The sense of positive Worthlessness or Demerit is the 
genuine pain of self-tenderness, and is denoted by the names 
Humiliation and Self-abasement. It is not often that human 
beings can be made to feel this state ; the regard to self is too 
strong to allow it a place. When it does gain a footing in the 
mind, the anguish and prostration are great in proportion to 
the joy of the opposite state. It is analogous to the discovery 
(also slow to be made) of demerit in objects of affection, which 
operates as a shock of revulsion and distress, of the severest 
kind. Just as the pleasures of tender feeling diffuse them- 
selves over the life, by their ideal self- subsistence, so do the 
pains of worthlessness in one's own eyes, if they have once 
taken possession of the mind. 

Self-abasement, the consequence of a sense of demerit, is 
also the first step towards relief; supposing, as it does, that 
the person has renounced all pretensions to merit, and ac- 
quiesced in the penalties of guilt. The penitential state 
begins with conscious worthlessness, and proceeds to regain 
the lost position by new endeavours. 

Self-reproach is another name applicable to the loss of one's 
good opinion of self. 



254 EMOTIONS OF SELF. 



LOVE OF APPROBATION, 



7. The feeling of being approved, admired, praised by 
others, is a heightened form of sell-gratulation, due to the 
workings of sympathy. 

The operation of sympathy will be minutely traced in a 
subsequent chapter. It is enough here to assume, that 
the coinciding expression of another person sustains and 
strengthens us in our own sentiments and opinions ; there 
being assignable circumstances that vary the influence exerted 
by the sympathizer. 

When we are affected with any emotion, the sympathy of 
another person may increase both the intensity of the feeling, 
and the power of sustaining it; in either way, adding to 
the pleasure of whatever is pleasurable. Our admiration of 
a work of genius is more prolonged, has a brighter and more 
enduring glow, when a sympathizing companion shares in it. 

Again, as regards our strength of assurance in our opinions 
or convictions, we are greatly assisted by the concurrence of 
other persons. A conviction may be doubled or tripled in 
force, when repeated by one whom we greatly respect. 

Now, both the circumstances named are present in the 
case of our being commended by others. Our self-complacency 
is made to burn brighter, and our estimate of self is made 
more secure, when another voice chimes in unison with our own. 

It is also to be noticed, that a compliment from another 
person is an occasion for bringing our own self-complacency 
into action. As our various emotions show themselves only 
in occasional outbursts from long tracks of dormancy, we are 
dependent on the occurrence of the suitable stimulants. Now, 
as regards self-complacency, one stimulant is some fresh per- 
formance of our own ; another is a tribute from some one else. 
Novelty in the stimulation is the condition of a copious out- 
pouring of any emotion, pleasurable or otherwise. 

To the intrinsic pleasure of Approbation, and the corre- 
sponding pain of Disapprobation, we must add the associations 
of other benefits attending the one, and of evils attending the 
other. Approbation suggests a wide circle of possible good, 
or the relief from possible calamities, which must greatly en- 
hance the cheering influence exerted by it on the mind. As 
influences of Joy on the one hand, and of Depression on the 
other, the manifested opinions of our fellow-beings occupy a 
high place among the agencies that control our happiness. 



APPKOBATION AND DISAPPROBATION. 255 

8. The following are Speciks, or modes, of the feeling 
of being admired. 

Mere Approbation is the lowest, and the most general, 
form of expressing a good opinion. It may intimate little 
more than a rescue from disapprobation, the setting our mind 
at ease, when we might be under some doubt; as in giving satis- 
faction to a master or superior. The pleasure in this case is a 
measure of our dread of disapprobation and its consequences. 

Admiration, and Praise, mean something higher and more 
stirring to self-complacency. Flattery and Adulation are 
excess, if not untruth, in the paying of compliments. Glory 
expresses a high and ostentatious form of praise ; the general 
multitude being roused to join in the acclaim. Reputation or 
Fame is supposed to reach beyond the narrow circle of an 
individual life, and to agitate remote countries, and distant 
ages ; an effort of imagination being necessary to realize the 
pleasure. Future Fame is not altogether empty ; the applause 
bestowed on the dead resounds in the ears of the living. 
Honour is the according of elevated position, and is shown by 
forms of compliment, and tokens of respect. 

The rules of Polite society include the bestowal of compli- 
ment with delicacy. On the one hand, the careful avoidance 
of whatever is calculated to wound the sense of self-importance, 
and, on the other hand, the full and ready recognition of all 
merit or excellence, are the arts of a refined age, for increasing 
the pleasures of society and the zest of life. 

9. The varieties of Disapprobation represent the painful 
side of the susceptibility to opinion. 

Disapprobation, Censure, Dispraise, Abuse, Libel, Reproach, 
Vituperation, Scorn, Infamy, are some of the names for the 
infliction of pain by the hostile judgments of others. If we 
are ourselves conscious of demerit, they add to the load of 
depression ; if we are not conscious of any evil desert, they 
still weigh upon us, in proportion as we should be elated by 
their opposites. As signifying the farther evils associated 
with ill opinion on the part of society, the intense disappro- 
bation of our fellow-men, uncounteracted, is able to make life 
unendurable. 

The pain of Remorse is completed by the union of self- 
reproach with the reproach of those around us. Many that 
have little sensibility to the first, acutely realize the last. 
The feeling of Shame is entirely resolvable into disapproba- 
tion, either openly expressed, or known to be entertained. 



256 EMOTION OF POWER. 

10. Self-complacency and the Love of Admiration are 
motives to personal excellence and public spirit. 

Egotistic in their roots, the tendency of these feelings may 
be highly social. Indeed, so much of social good conduct is 
plainly stimulated by the rewards and punishments of public 
opinion, that some ethical speculators have been unable to 
discern any purely disinterested impulses in the conduct of 
men. 

The unsocial side of these emotions is manifested in the 
intense competition for a luxury of limited amount. The dis- 
posable admiration of mankind is too little for the claims 
upon it. 



CHAPTEK VII. 

EMOTION OF POWER. 

1. The Emotion of Power is distinct from both the 
pleasure of Exercise and the satisfaction of gaining our 
Ends. It is due to a sense of superior might or energy, 
on a comparative trial. 

We have already seen what are the pleasures connected 
with muscular Exercise, when there is surplus vigour to dis- 
charge. There may also be a certain gratification in intellec- 
tual exercise, as exercise, under the same condition of abound- 
ing energy in the intellectual organs. 

In the active pursuit of an End, there is necessarily some 
pleasure to be gathered, or pain to be got rid of. When our 
exertion secures our ends, it brings us whatever satisfaction 
belongs to those ends. 

Neither of these gratifications is the pleasure of Power ; 
which arises only when a comparison is made between two 
persons, or between two efforts of the same person, and when 
the one is found superior to the other. 

The sentiment of superior Power is felt in the development 
of the bodily and mental frame. The growing youth is pleased 
at the increase of his strength ; every new advance, in know- 
ledge, in the conquest of difficulties, gives a thrill of satisfac- 
tion, founded essentially on comparison. The conscious 
decline of our faculties in old age is the inverse fact. 



THE EMOTION OF POWER SUBSISTS ON COMPARISON. 257 

A second mode of comparison has regard to the greater 
productiveness of our efforts ; as when we obtain better tools, 
or work upon a more hopeful material. The teacher is 
cheered by a promising pupil. An advanced grade of command 
gives the same feeling. 

The third mode is comparison with others. In a contest, 
or competition, the successful combatant has the gratification 
of superior power. According to the number and the great- 
ness of the men that we have distanced in the race, is our 
sense of superiority. Like all other relative states, the emotion 
cannot be kept up at the highest pitch without new advances. 
Long continuance in an elevated position dulls the mere sense 
of elevation (without derogating from the other advantages) ; 
in proportion as the remembrance of the inferior state dies 
away, so does the joy of the present superiority. The man 
that has been in a high position all his life, feels his greatness 
only as he enters into the state of those beneath him ; if he 
does not choose to take this trouble, he will have little con- 
scious elation from his own pre-eminence. 

2. The physical side of the emotion of Power shows 
an erect lofty bearing, and a flush of physical energy, as if 
from a sudden increase of nervous power; a frequent 
accompaniment is the outburst of Laughter. 

Erectness of carriage and demeanour is looked upon as 
the fitting expression of superior might; while collapse or 
prostration is significant of inferiority. If we advert to the 
moment of a fresh victory, we shall see the proofs of increased 
vital power in the exuberance and excitement, and in the dis- 
position for new labours. We are accustomed to contrast the 
spirits of men beating with the spirits of men beaten. 

There are various causes of the outburst of Laughter, but 
none more certain than a sudden stroke of superiority, or 
the eclat of a telling effect. The evidence is furnished in the 
undisguised manifestations of childish glee, in the sports of 
youth, and in the hilarious outbursts of every stage of life. 

The physical invigoration arising from a sense of superior 
power is in conformity with the general law of Self- conserva- 
tion. Conscious impotence is a position of restraint, a con- 
flict of the forces ; to escape from it is the cessation of a 
struggle, the redemption of vital energy. 

The bearing on the Will is a consequence of the special 
alliance of the state with our activity. By it we are disposed 
to energy, not merely through its stimulus as pleasure, but 

17 



258 EMOTION OF POWER. 

also through, its direct influence on the active side of our con- 
stitution. This can be best understood by contrast with the 
passive tone under tender emotion. 

3. On the mental side, the feeling of Power is, in 
Quality, pleasurable ; in Degree, both acute and massive ; 
in Speciality, it connects itself with our active states. 

The gratification of superior Power falls under the com- 
prehensive class of elating, or intoxicating pleasures, due to a 
rebound, or relief from previous depression. It is most nearly 
allied to Liberty. In both, the active forces are supposed to 
have been in a state of wasting conflict, from which they are 
suddenly rescued. 

Intellectually, this pleasure is not of the highest order, if 
we are to judge from the cost of sustaining it. Being an 
acute thrill, it may impress the intellect in one way, namely, 
in the fact of its having been present ; but we do not easily 
repeat the pleasure ideally, in the absence of the original 
stimulation. Hence its mere memory would give compara- 
tively little satisfaction, while it might contain the sting and 
prompting of desire. In this respect also, it is contrasted 
with tenderness. As a present feeling, it has power to oc- 
cupy the mind, to control the thoughts, and to enthrall the 
beliefs. 

4. Next, as to the Specific forms of the emotion. 

What is vulgarly called ' making a sensation,' is highly 
illustrative of the rebounding elation of conscious Power. 
This is the infantile occasion of hilarity and mirth. Any act 
that gives a strong impression, that awakens the attention, or 
arrests or quickens the movements of others, reflects the power 
of the agent, and stimulates the joyous outburst. To cause a 
shock of fright, or disgust, or anger (not dangerous), is highly 
impressive, and the actor's comparison of bis own power with 
the prostration of the sufferer occasions a burst of the joyous 
elation of power ; laughter being a never- failing token of the 
pleasure. 

The control of Large Operations reflects by comparison the 
sense of superior efficiency. This is the position of the man 
in extensive business, the employer of numerous operatives, 
all working for his behoof. Such a one not merely reaps a 
more abundant produce, but also luxuriates in a wide control. 

The exercise of Command or Authority, in all its multitu- 
dinous varieties, is attended with the delight of power. It 



SPECIES OF THE EMOTION. 259 

appears in the headship of a family ; in early ages, a position 
of uncontrolled despotism. It is incident to all the relations of 
master and servant. In some forms of employment, as in 
military service, it is, for certain reasons of expediency, made 
very impressive ; the contrast between the airs of the superior 
and the deferential attitude of the inferior, is purposely ex- 
aggerated. In the departments of the state, great powers 
have to be entrusted to individuals, who thereupon feel their 
own superiority, and make others feel their inferiority. 

The pleasure of Wealth, especially in large amount, in- 
volves to a high degree the sentiment of power. Riches buys 
the command of many men's services, and gives, unemployed, 
the feeling of ideal power. 

By force of Persuasion, eloquence, counsel, or intellectual 
ascendancy, any one may have the consciousness of power, 
without the authority of office. The leader of assemblies, or 
of parties in the state, enjoys the sentiment in this form. 

The luxury of power attaches to Spiritual ascendancy. In 
the ministry of religion, a man is conscious of an authority 
superior to all temporal rule. The preacher is apt to suppose, 
that his most ordinary composition is raised, by a supernatural 
afflatus, to an efficacy far beyond the choicest language em- 
ployed by other men. 

Even superior Knowledge gives a position of conscious 
power, although the farthest removed from the influence of 
force or constraint. In proportion as a man possesses infor- 
mation of great practical moment, such as others do not 
possess, he is raised to an eminence of pride and power. 

The love of Influence, Interference, and Control, is so ex- 
tensive and salient as to be a great fact in the constitution of 
society, a leading cause of social phenomena. It prompts to 
Intolerance, and the suppression of individuality. Many are 
found willing to submit to restraints themselves, provided 
they can impose the same upon their unwilling neighbours. 

In the disposition to intrude into other people's affairs, and 
to give opinions favourable or unfavourable on the conduct of 
mankind generally, there is still the same lurking conscious- 
ness of power. More openly and avowedly, it shows itself in 
the various modes of conveying Disapprobation, whether ex- 
torted by the just sense of demerit, or set on for the plea- 
sure of raising ourselves by judging and depreciating others. 
Contempt, Derision, Scorn, Contumely, measure the greatness 
of the person expressing them, against the degradation and 
insignificance of the person subjected to them. 



260 IKASCIBLE EMOTION. 

The feeling of Power is likely to abound in the active or 
energetic temperament, to which it is closely allied. In the 
form of Ambition, it takes possession of such minds ; who have 
their crowning satisfaction in becoming the masters of man- 
kind. We need only to refer to the class of men that suc- 
cessively held the throne of Imperial Rome. 

The present emotion will now be seen to be widely differ- 
ent from the feelings considered in the foregoing chapter, 
although fusing readily with these. Men have often sought 
power at the sacrifice of reputation ; and have enjoyed ascen- 
dancy accompanied with universal hatred. 

5. The pains of Impotence are in all respects the oppo- 
site of the pleasurable sentiment of Power. 

Being subject to other men's wills, and rendered small by 
the comparison ; being beaten in a conflict ; being dependent 
on others ; being treated with contumely and contempt ; being 
frustrated in our designs, — all bring home the depressing 
sense of littleness. A great exertion with a trifling result is 
the occasion of ridicule and contempt. 

Belonging to the exercise of power is a form of Jealousy. 
Any one detracting from our sense of superiority, influence, 
command, mastership, — stings us to the quick ; and the resent- 
ment aroused, to which is given this formidable designation, 
shows the intensity of our feelings. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
IKASCIBLE EMOTION. 

1. The Irascible Emotion, or Anger, arising in pain, 
is marked by pleasure derived from the infliction of pain. 

The unmistakeable fact of Anger is that pointed out by 
Aristotle, the desire to put some one to pain. 

2. The Objects of the feeling are persons," the authors 
of pain, or injury. 

Inanimate objects may produce pain in us, together with 
some of the accompaniments of anger, as for example, the 
rousing of the energies to re-act upon the cause of the pain ; 



PHYSICAL SIDE OF ANGER. 261 

but, without clothing them in personality, we cannot feel 
proper anger towards these. The old Arcadians, when unsuc- 
cessful in the chase, showed their resentment by pricking the 
wooden statue of Pan, their Deity. 

3. The physical manifestations of Anger, over and 
above the embodiment of the antecedent pain, are (1) 
general Excitement ; (2) an outburst of Activity ; (3) De- 
ranged Organic functions ; (4) a characteristic Expression 
and Attitude of Body ; and (5), in the completed act of 
Kevenge, a burst of exultation. 

(1) A general Excitement of the system follows any 
shock, especially if sudden and acute, yet not crushing. The 
direction that the excitement takes depends on other things. 

(2) In Anger, the excitement reaches the centres of Activity 
and rouses them to an unusual pitch, sometimes to frenzy 
bordering on delirium. Herein lies the contrast to Fear, 
which draws off power from the active organs, and excites the 
centres of sensibility and thought. 

(3) The derangement of the Organic functions is pro- 
bably due solely to the withdrawal of blood and nervous 
power ; it does not assume any constant form. The popular 
notion as to ' bile ' being secreted in greater abundance, is no 
farther true than as implying loss of tone in the digestive 
organs. 

(4) The Expression of Feature and the Attitude of Body 
are in keeping with strong active determination, bred by pain. 

(5) In the stage of consummated Retaliation, the joyful 
and exulting expression mingles with the whole, and gives a 
peculiar set to the features, a complication of all the impulses. 

4. On the mental side, Anger contains an impulse 
knowingly to inflict suffering upon another sentient being, 
and a positive gratification in the fact of suffering in- 
flicted. 

The first and obvious effect of an injury is to rouse us to 
resist it. We may do more ; we may, for our more effectual 
protection, disarm and disable the person that has injured us. 
All this is volition, and not anger. Under the angry feeling 
we proceed farther, and inflict pain upon the author of 
the injury, knowing it to be such, and deriving satisfaction 
in proportion to the certainty and the amount of the 
pain. This positive pleasure of malevolence is the fact to be 
resolved. 



262 IRASCIBLE EMOTION. 

5. In the ultimate analysis of Anger, we seem to trace 
these ingredients : — (1) In a state of frenzied excitement, 
some effect is sought to give vent to the activity. (2) The 
sight of bodily infliction and suffering seems to be a mode 
of sensuous and sensual pleasure. (3) The pleasure of 
power is pandered to. (4) There is a satisfaction in pre- 
venting farther pain to ourselves, by inducing fear of us, 
or of consequences, in any one manifesting harmful 
purposes. 

(1) When the state of active excitement is induced, some- 
thing must be done to give it scope or vent. To be full of 
energy, and have nothing for it to execute, is an unsatisfactory 
state to be in. Some change or effect produced on inanimate 
things, wholly irrelevant to the occasion, gives a certain 
measure of relief. Kicking away a chair, upsetting a table, 
tearing down a bell-rope, are the actions of a man under a 
mere frenzied or maniacal excitement. The rending of the 
clothes, among the Jews, would seem intended to signify a 
great shock and agitation, with frenzied excitement. 

(2) In the spectacle of bodily infliction and suffering, 
there seems to be a positive fascination. In the absence of 
countervailing sympathies, the writhings of pain furnish a 
new variety of the sensuous and sensual stimulation arising 
from our contact with living beings. In the lower races, the 
delight from witnessing suffering is intense. 

(3) In putting another to pain, there is a glut of the 
emotion of power or superiority. The felt difference or con- 
trast between the position of inflicting pain, and the feeing 
subjected to it, is a startling evidence of superior power and a 
source of joy and exultation. The childish delight in making 
an effect, or a sensation, is at its utmost, when some person or 
animal is victimized and shows signs of pain. 

Were it not for our sympathies, our fears, and our con- 
scientious feelings generally, this delight would be universal ; 
we should omit no chance of gratifying it. Now, when an- 
other person puts us to pain, or causes us injury, the imme- 
diate effect is to suspend the feelings of sympathy, respect, 
and obligation, and to open the way for the other gratifica- 
tions. It is putting the injurer under the ban of the empire — 
making him an outlaw ; the sacredness of his person is torn 
away, and he is surrendered to the sway of the passions that 
find their delight in suffering. It is rare in a civilized com- 
munity to victimize the harmless and innocent ; let, however, 



ANGER IN THE LOWER ANIMALS. 263 

any man or animal, by their bearing or ill conduct, furnish a 
pretext for suspending habeas corpus in their case, and a mul- 
titude will be ready to join in their destruction. 

(4) In retaliating upon the author of an injury, to the 
point of effectually deterring from a renewal of the offence, 
we deliver ourselves from a cause of fear ; which is to enjoy 
the reaction and relief from a depressing agency. We have 
this satisfaction in destroying wild beasts ; in punishing a 
gang of robbers ; in routing and disarming an aggressive 
power. 

Considered as a pleasurable gratification, the feeling will 
vary according to the element that we suppose to prevail. 
If the chief fact be the glut of sensuality and of power, the 
feeling is one of great and acute pleasure, and might be de- 
scribed in part by the language already given with reference 
to the emotion of power. 

6. The various aspects and Species of Anger may next 
be reviewed. 

In the Lower Animals, certain manifestations pass for 
modes of irascibility. The beasts of prey destroy and devour 
their victims, with all the frantic excitement of wrath ; while 
some herbivorous animals, as the bull and the stag, fight one 
another to the death. All animals possessing courage and 
energy repel attacks and invasion by positive inflictions ; the 
poisonous reptiles and insects, when molested, discharge their 
venom. 

The vehemence in the destruction of prey is nothing more 
than volition under the stimulus of hunger. So in resisting 
attacks, the animal is awakened to put forth its active endow- 
ment, whatever that may be. It is not easy to fix the point 
where something more than the exertion of energy is con- 
cerned. An ordinary development of intelligence in discerning 
the means to ends, would enable an animal to see, in the de- 
struction of a rival, a step to the satisfying of its own sensual 
appetites. It is possible that an effect of association might 
convert this means into an end in itself, like the miser's love of 
money ; so that even an animal without special wants, in the 
abundance of surplus energy, might manifest its destructive pro- 
pensity uncalled for. In bull-fighting and cock-fighting, the 
active energies are under express stimulation from without, and 
the fury manifested has all the frenzied excitement of rage. 
Still, it is not necessary to assume anything beyond a mere 
rudiment of the proper pleasure of power. The victorious 



264 IRASCIBLE EMOTION. 

animal may have sufficient recollection of its own chequered 
experiences to enter somewhat into the position of being van- 
quished, and to feel the difference between that and success ; 
and exactly as this intellectual and emotional comparison is 
within the compass of its powers, will it feel the glut of its 
own superiority. If we are unable to assign to any but the 
highest animals such an intellectual range as this, we cannot 
credit animals generally with the developed form of anger. 

By the study of Infancy and Childhood, we may expect to 
see the gradual unfolding of the passion. The earliest ex- 
periences of pain in the infant lead to a more or less energetic 
excitement of grief. After the development of distinct likings 
and dislikings, with the accompanying voluntary determina- 
tions, any strong repugnance will lead to a burst of energetic 
avoidance ; following the law of the will. There will likewise 
be the manifestation of beating off a rival claimant, as means 
to an end. Then comes the stage above supposed to be trace- 
able in the higher animals, the sense of one's own present 
energy, in comparison with the understood pain and humilia- 
tion of another. Only the human intellect can frilly attain 
such an elevation; but when it is attained, the pleasure of 
power has come to birth, and, therewith, genuine anger. 
The child is not long out of the arms when it reaches this 
point, and it proceeds rapidly to perfect the acquisition. Side 
by side with the sense of power over others, will also be 
shown the venting of active excitement on things inanimate. 

In the irascible feeling, as seen in maturity, it has been 
usual to make a distinction between Sudden and Deliberate 
Anger. The Sudden form of Anger is the least complicated, 
and shows the natural and habitual disposition. Excitable 
temperaments, not trained to suppression, are those liable to 
the sudden outburst. 

In Deliberate Anger, or Revenge, the mind considers all 
the circumstances of the injury, as well as the measure and the 
consequences of retaliation. There is implied, in Revenge, the 
need of retaliation to satisfy the feelings of the offended per- 
son. According to the amount of the injury, and to the exact- 
ing disposition of the injured party, is the demand for ven- 
geance. When men have been injured on matters that they 
are deeply alive to, — plundered, cheated, reviled, deprived of 
their rights, — their resentment attests the magnitude of their 
sufferings, the value that they set upon their own inviolability. 
The ordinary measure of revenge, in civilized life, is in some 
proportion to the fancied injury; the barbarian exceeds all 



HATRED. — ANTIPATHY. 265 

proportions, and gluts himself with the satisfaction of ven- 
geance. What are we to expect from him that can take un- 
mingled delight in the sufferings of an unoffending fellow- 
being ? 

The affection grounded on anger is called Hatred. The 
sense of some one wrong never satisfied, a supposed harmful 
disposition on the part of another, an obstructive position 
maintained, — keep up the resentful flame, till it has become an 
affection, or a habit. Sometimes a mere aversion or dislike is 
cherished into hatred. Rivalry, superiority in circumstances, 
the exercise of power or authority, are frequent causes. 
A familiar example is seen in Party spirit. Men banded 
together in sects or parties, generally entertain a permanent 
animosity to their rival sects. It is in this form of the affec- 
tion that Anger becomes a paramount element of one's life, 
like Tender Affection, Habitual Anxiety, or Cultivated Taste. 
Modified by accidental causes, sometimes intensified by special 
provocation, sometimes neutralized by temporary occasions of 
sympathy, it is one of the moral forces of the human being, 
imparting pleasure and pain, controlling the attention and 
thoughts, and swaying the convictions. 

The formidable manifestation named Antipathy, is stronger 
than Hatred. It owes part of its intensity to an infusion of 
Fear. The violent antipathies towards certain animals, as the 
poisonous reptile, are in a great measure due to fear. Others 
offend sensibilities of the aesthetic kind, as when they are asso- 
ciated with filth and disgust. 

Even towards human beings, the state of Antipathy may 
arise without the provocation of injury, as in the antipathies 
of race, of caste, and of creed. The natural or artificial repug- 
nance thus occasioned will inspire, no less than vengeance, a 
disposition to inflict harm, and to exult over calamity. 

The state of Warfare, Hostility, Combat, brings before ug 
the irascible feeling in its highest activity. The elements pre- 
sent are too obvious to require detail. The potency of opposi- 
tion, as a stimulant of the active powers, has already been 
adverted to. A frenzied active excitement is the characteristic 
fact- of hostility, as of anger. Fighting and rage are not two 
things, but the same thing. 

The different grades and varieties of offence make corres- 
ponding differences in the spirit and manner of retaliation. In 
the case of Involuntary harm, the wrathful impulse is transi- 
tory, unless it be from avoidable carelessness, which is treated 
as a fault demanding reparation. It is common for persons, 



266 IRASCIBLE EMOTION. 

without intending harm, to proceed with their own objects, 
giving no heed to the feelings or interests of others ; as in 
tobacco smoking. Lastly, there is the case of malicious 
design, which necessarily provokes, to the full, the resentful 
energy of the sufferer. 

Seeing that the wrathful feelings originate in pain, and lead 
to the risks of a counter resentment, some Ethical writers have 
contended against the reality of a Pleasure of Malevolence. But 
these attendant pains are only a part of the case. It is true that 
when the sympathies and tender feelings are highly developed, 
the exercise of resentment may be more painful on the whole than 
pleasurable; in this case, however, it is suppressed; a bene- 
volent mind seldom gives way to revenge. The burden of proof 
lies upon whoever would maintain that mankind deliberately and 
energetically aim at a present pain. The fact is known to occur 
under certain modes of excitement, and possibly, therefore, in the 
irascible excitement. We have already noticed the influence of 
fear, in thwarting the ordinary course of the will. But revenge 
is far too common, too persistent in its exercise, both in hot blood 
and in cool, to be an insane fixed idea, working nothing but pain. 
The whole human race cannot be under a mistake on this head. 
The Homeric sentiment would be echoed by the millions of every 
age, — Eevenge is sweeter than honey. 

When resentment conies to the aid of the moral feelings, 
as revenge for criminality and wrong, it is termed *• Righteous 
Indignation.' A positive and undeniable pleasure attends the 
retributive vengeance that overtakes wrong-doers and the 
tyrants and oppressors of mankind. The designation ' Noble 
Rage ' points to. a more artistic effect, being the display of 
anger in striking attitudes,, and magniloquent diction, as in a 
hero of romance — the Achilles of Homer, the Satan of Paradise 
Lost. 

7. The working of Sympathy gives a great expansion 
to the irascible feeling ; to whatever degree we enter into 
the injuries of others> we also participate in their Revenge. 

Inasmuch as the occurrence of injury is a wide-spread fact, 
it makes a considerable part of our interest as spectators of 
actual life. We receive a shock, more or less painful, when 
a great wrong is perpetrated before our eyes; and have a 
corresponding pleasure in the retaliation. The historian can 
sometimes gratify us by the spectacle of retribution for 
flagrant wrongs ;. the romancist, having the events at com- 
mand, allows few failures. 

8. In the Sentiment of Justice, when analyzed, there 



PUNISHMENT. 267 

may be traced an element of resentful passion ; and the 
idea of Justice, when matured, guides and limits revenge. 

A main prompting to Justice, in the first instance, is 
sympathetic resentment. But in the fully developed idea of 
the Just, there is a regard to the value of one man as com- 
pared with another, according to the reasonings and conven- 
tions of the time. 

9. The infliction of Punishment, by law, although 
gratifying to the sympathetic resentment of the community, 
is understood to be designed principally for the prevention 
of injury. 

The design of punishing offenders by Law is to secure the 
public safety. Incidental to this is the gratification of re- 
sentment ; which, however, is still to be in subjection to the 
principal end. Mr J. S. Mill remarks that there is a legiti- 
mate satisfaction due to our feelings of indignation and re- 
sentment, inasmuch as these are on the whole salutary and 
worthy of cultivation, although still as means to, an end.* 



CHAPTER IX. 
EMOTIONS OF ACTION— PUESUIT. 

1. In voluntary activity three modes of feeling have 
now been considered: — (1) the pleasures and pains of 
exercise ; (2) the satisfaction of the end (or the pain of 
missing it) ; and (3) the pleasure of superior (and pain of 
inferior) power. 

* ' The benefits which criminal law produces are twofold. In the 
first place, it prevents crime by terror ; in the second place, it regulates, 
sanctions, and provides a legitimate satisfaction for the passion of revenge. 
I shaU not insist on the importance of this second advantage, but shall 
content myself with referring those who deny that it is one, to the works 
of the two greatest English moralists, each of whom was the champion of 
one of the two great schools of thought upon that subject — Butler and 
Bentham. The criminal law stands to the passion of revenge in much, 
the same relation as marriage to the sexual appetite.' (J. F. Stephen's 
Criminal Law, Chap. IV., p. 98.) 



288 EMOTIONS OF ACTION— PURSUIT. 

There remains the mental attitude under a gradually 
approaching end, a condition of suspense, termed Pursuit 
and Plot-interest. 

In working to some end, as the ascent of a mountain, or 
in watching any consummation drawing near, as a race, we 
are in a peculiar state of arrested attention, which, as an 
agreeable effect, is often desired for itself. 

2. On the physical side, the situation of pursuit is 
marked by (1) the intent occupation of some one of the 
senses upon an object, and (2) the general attitude or 
activity harmonizing with this ; there being, on the whole, 
an energetic muscular strain. 

When the pursuit is something visible, we are ' all eye/ as 
in witnessing a contest ; if the end is indicated by sound, as 
in listening to a narrative, we are all ear. If we are specta- 
tors or listeners merely, the general attitude shows muscular 
tension ; if we are agents, we are sustained in our activity by 
the approach of the end. 

3. On the mental side, Pursuit supposes (1) a motive 
in the interest of an end, heightened by its steady ap- 
proach ; (2) the state of engrossment in object regards, 
with remission of subject regards. 

Some end is needed to stimulate the voluntary energies ; 
and, by the Law of Self- conservation, the gradual approach 
towards the consummating of the end heightens the energies, 
and intensifies the pursuit. 

Now, all muscular exertion is objective (p. 21) ; it throws us 
upon the object attitude, and takes us out of the subject atti- 
tude. Whatever promotes muscular exertion, both as to the 
intensity of the strain, and the number and the importance of 
the muscles engaged, renders us objective in our regards, and 
withdraws us from the subject side. More especially are we 
put in the object position by the energetic action of the exter- 
nal senses, so extensively and closely allied with the cerebral 
activity. Hence, whatever keeps up an intent and unremitted 
muscular strain, involving the higher senses, is an occasion of 
extreme objectivity ; and this is the essential character of pur- 
suit and plot-interest. 

The value of the situation is relative to the circumstance 
that we are apt to be too much thrown upon the subject con- 
sciousness ; which, although essential to enjoyment (for per- 



OBJECTIVITY IS INDIFFERENCE. 269 

feet objectivity is perfect indifference) is also the condition of 
our being alive to suffering, and of our dwelling upon our 
pleasures till they exhaust us and pass into the pains of ennui. 
Subjectivity is apparently more costly to the nervous system ; 
the objective attitude, if not unduly strained, can be longest 
endured. As far as actual pleasure is concerned, it is time 
lost ; but an unremitted pleasurable consciousness is beyond 
human nature ; tracts of objective indifference seem as neces- 
sary to enduring life, as the total cessation of consciousness 
for one-third of our time. These objective tracts are found in 
our periods of activity, and especially the activity of the bodily 
organs ; but they occur most advantageously when the activity 
is bringing us near to an interesting goal of pursuit. 

It is the nature of the waking mind to alternate from 
object to subject states, the one giving as it were a refreshing 
variety to the other. A highly exciting stimulus, as a stage 
performance, keeps us in the objective attitude, but not in 
unbroken persistence or perfect purity ; were it not for our 
frequent lapses into subjectivity, we should slip out of the pri- 
mary motive, and submerge the whole of the enjoyment. The 
transitions are performed with great rapidity ; the same atti- 
tude may not last above two or three seconds ; while, the 
longer we are kept in the object strain, the sweeter is the 
relapse to the subject consciousness, supposing it to be 
pleasurable. 

4. Chance, or Uncertainty, within limits, contributes 
to the engrossment of Pursuit. 

Absolute certainty of attainment, being as good as pos- 
session, does not constitute a stimulus to plot-interest ; in look- 
ing forward to the payment of an assured debt, there is no ex- 
citement. But a certain degree of doubt, with possibility of 
failure, gives so much of the state of terror as excites the 
perceptive organs to the look-out; in which situation, the 
steady approach of the decisive termination, either cheers us, 
by removing the fear, or increases the strength of the gaze, by 
deepening the doubt. 

The most favourable operation of uncertainty is when 
there is before us a prospect of something good, such that 
the attainment is a gain, while failure only leaves us as we were. 
There is not, in this case, the depressing terror of impending 
calamity, but merely the agitation consequent on our hopes 
being raised, and yet not assured. Still, if the stake be high, 
the fear of losing it will deprive the situation of the favour- 



270 EMOTIONS OF ACTION — PUKSUIT. 

able stimulus of plot-interest. It is by combining a small 
amount of uncertainty with a moderate stake, that we best 
realize the proper charm of pursuit. 

As in all other things, Novelty gives zest to pursuit. A 
new game, a new player, a different arrangement of parties, 
will freshen the thoughts, and re-animate the dubiousness of 
the issue, 

5. The excitement of Pursuit is seen in the Lower 
Animals. 

An animal chasing its prey puts forth its energies accord- 
ing to the strength of its appetite. The excitement, however, 
manifestly becomes greater near the close, when the victim is 
gradually gained upon, and all but seized. We have here the 
essentials of the situation ; and the feelings of the animal may 
be presumed to correspond with its accelerated movement, 
and intensified expression. 

6. As regards human experience, we may first take 
notice of Field Sports. 

In these, the end is, to most men, highly grateful ; being 
the triumph of skill and force in the capture of some animal 
gifted with powers of eluding the pursuer. The pursuit is 
long and uncertain ; the attention is on the alert, and at the 
critical moments screwed up to a pitch of intensity. To suc- 
ceed in bringing down the victim after a hot and ardent pur- 
suit, is to relapse from an objective engrossment, into a 
subjective flash of successful achievement and gratified power. 

The circumstances of the different sports are various, and 
easily assigned. The most difficult to account for, perhaps, 
is the interest of Angling ; there being so many fruitless 
throws against one success. We need to suppose that the 
Angler has an emotional temperament more copious and self- 
sustaining than most other men. In the Chase, there are 
additional excitements of a fiery sort, to make it the acme of 
the sporting life. The more dangerous sports of hunting the 
tiger, the elephant, the boar, are ecstasy to the genuine 
sportsman, 

7. The excitement of pursuit is incident to Contests. 
The combatant in an equal, or nearly equal contest, has a 

stake and an uncertainty that engages his powers and en- 
grosses his attention to the highest pitch. His objectivity is 
strained to the uttermost limits, and if he succeeds, he gains 
the joys of triumph, after being forcibly withdrawn from self- 
consciousness. 



CONTESTS. 271 

The excitement of contests has, in all ages, been a favourite 
recreation. The programme of the Olympic games was a 
series of contests. Gladiatorial shows, Tournaments, Races, 
have had their thousands of votaries. Even the encounters of 
the intellect — in disputation, oratory, wit, — attract and detain 
a numerous host of spectators. 

In many of the common games, skill and strength are dis- 
turbed by Chance, which opens up to each player greater 
possibilities, and therefore quickens the intensity of the object 
regards. In Cards and Dice, although long-continued play 
eliminates chance, yet, for a single game, hazard is nearly 
supreme. 

8. The occupations of Industry involve, more or less, 
the suspense of Plot-interest. 

Wherever our voluntary energies are engaged, a certain 
attention is fastened on the end, which has a suspensive or 
arrestive effect. Hence all industry is, to some degree, anti- 
subjective, or calculated to take a man out of himself. The 
prisoner's ennui does not attain its extreme pressure unless he 
is debarred from occupation. But, where there is great 
monotony in the execution, together with certainty, as well as 
absence of novelty, in the result, — for example, in turning a 
wheel, or unloading a ship, — there is little to stretch the gaze, 
or arrest the attention. The exciting occupations are those 
that involve high and doubtful prospects, as war, stock-jobbing, 
and. the more hazardous species of commerce. In Agriculture, 
the seasons supply a succession of ends, with the interest of 
suspense, often attended with pain and disappointment, but 
still of a kind to sustain the objective outlook. 

In every piece of work that has its beginning, middle, and 
end, there is an alleviation of tedium by measuring the steps 
gained, and watching the remainder as it dwindles to nothing. 

9. In the Sympathetic Relationships, there is the 
additional interest of plot. 

The gratifying of the tender feelings being an end in life, 
the progress towards it necessarily inspires the forward look, 
and the suspensive attitude, from which the relapses into sub- 
jective consciousness are exciting by alternation. All the 
successes, the epochs and turning points in the career of an 
object of affectioD, a child or a friend, give periods of intent 
occupation, taking one out of self, and out of one's own 
pleasures. Still, we are seldom losers by the objective atti- 



272 EMOTIONS OF ACTION — PURSUIT. 

tude ; we are made the more alive to the subjective relapses ; 
and, if pleasure be awaiting us, it is all the greater for the 
diversion. 

10. The search after Knowledge is attended with plot 

The feeling of knowledge attained being one of the satis- 
factions of life, the gradual approach to some interesting dis- 
closure, or some great discovery, enlivens the forward look 
and the attitude of suspense. The sense of difficulty to be 
solved, of darkness to be illuminated, awakens curiosity and 
search ; and the near prospect of the result has the same effect 
as in every other engaging pursuit. The art of the teacher 
and expositor lies first in awakening desire, by a distinct 
statement of the end to be gained, and then in carrying the 
pupil forward by sensible stages to the consummation; the 
attitude of suspense is identical with earnest attention. 

11. The position of the Spectator contains the essen- 
tial part of the interest of pursuit. 

Any chase, contest, or pursuit, of a kind to interest us as 
actors, commands our sympathy as spectators ; and the 
moments of nearing the termination and settling the issue 
inspire our rapt attention. As with sympathy generally, this 
circumstance gives a great additional scope to our interest 
and our feelings. Contests are peculiarly fitted to arrest the 
gaze of tne spectator ; and they have accordingly been adopted 
into the public amusements of all times. The daily business 
of the world, as, for example, the large affairs of nations, by 
affecting us either personally, or sympathetically, usually con- 
tain a stake, a greater or less uncertainty, and a final clearing 
up preceded by a state of suspense. We may also witness 
with interest, the steps and issues of great (or even small) 
industrial undertakings, provided their consummation is cal- 
culated to give us pleasure, and is attained through a progress 
from uncertainty. 

12. The Literature of Plot, or Sttfry, is the express 
cultivation of the attitude of suspense. 

A narrative will give the same sympathetic interest as a 
spectacle. An interesting stake, at first remote and uncertain, 
is brought nearer by degrees ; and whenever it is visibly ap- 
proaching to the decision, the hearer assumes the rapt atti- 
tude that takes him out of the subject sphere. Events going 
on around us, and past history for the first time made known, 



PAINS INCIDENT TO ACTIVITY. 273 

command the elements of the situation, and thence derive much 
of their power of detaining the mind. But, whereas real events, 
although containing the circumstance of suspense, often dis- 
appoint expectation, the composer of fiction and romance 
studies how to work up the interest to the highest pitch. 
The entire narration in an epic poem, or romance, is con- 
ceived to an agreeable end, which is suspended by inter- 
mediate actions, and thrown into pleasing uncertainty ; while 
minor plots engage the attention and divert the pressure of 
the main plot. 

13. The form of pain, incident to pursuit, is the too 
great prolongation of the suspense. 

There is a pain in the crossing of our wishes as to the 
catastrophe. There is also the suffering caused by a high and 
serious risk. But the form of pain special to the attitude of 
suspense, is the prolongation or adjournment of the issue. 
This is merely one of the many forms of the pain of Conflict ; 
the mind is wrought up to a certain attitude of expectation, 
to be baulked or disappointed. 

14. The more general pains accompanying activity are 
connected in various ways with the labour or difficulty of 
execution. 

Excessive muscular efforts produce the pains of muscle. 
Baffled attempts, from want of strength or skill, have the 
dispiriting effect of all thwarted aims, according to the law 
of Conflict. 



CHAPTEK X. 
EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. 

1. The operations of the Intellect may be attended with 
various forms of pleasure and pain. 

As mere exercise, the Intellectual trains may give pleasure 
in a fresh condition of the system, and be attended by nervous 
fatigue when long continued. 
18 



274 EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. 

2. The working of Contiguity, as in ordinary memory, 
does not yield any emotional excitement. Laboured recol- 
lection brings the usual pain of difficulty or Conflict. 

We derive no emotion from repeating the alphabet or the 
multiplication table. The pleasures and pains of memory are 
due to the things remembered, and not to the exercise of 
remembering. 

Laboured recollection is a case of baffled endeavours, and 
brings the distress, more or less acute or massive, of that form 
of Conflict. Of a similar nature are all the pains, both of 
difficult intellectual comprehension, and of difficult construc- 
tiveness. The successive checks sustained by the thinking 
powers, in a work of thought, have the same painful character, 
as checks to the muscular powers in a manual enterprise, 
The student labouring long in vain to understand a problem, 
the poet dissatisfied with his verses, the man of speculation 
puzzled and defeated, the military commander undecided as to 
his tactics, all experience the pains of distraction and conflict. 

3. To complete the painful side of Intellectual exercise, 
reaction from which is the main source of intellectual 
pleasure, we may add the pain of Contradiction or Incon- 
sistency. 

Contradiction or Inconsistency is one of the most obvious 
forms of Conflict, and, in proportion to its hold on the mind, 
gives all the characteristic pain of conflict. When our im- 
mediate interests are concerned, the contradiction is felt in 
thwarting some end of pursuit ; as when we receive contra- 
dictory opinions respecting the character of an ailment, or the 
conduct of a law suit. On subjects that concern others and 
not ourselves, the pain of the contradiction depends on the 
strength of the sympathies. With regard to truth generally, 
or matters of science and erudition, where the applications to 
practice are not immediately apparent, contradictions produce 
no impression on the mass of men ; they are felt only by the 
more cultured intellects, who are accustomed to contemplate 
all the bearings of true knowledge, and who have thereby con- 
tracted a strong sense of its value. 

4. The pleasure attending strokes of Similarity in 
diversity may be described generally as an agreeable or 
exhilarating Surprise. Yet, the largest part of the pleasure 
is the sudden and unexpected relief from an intellectual 
burden. 



DISCOVERIES OF SIMILARITY. 275 

There can be no novelty or freshness in the trains of 
Contiguity ; but the operation of Similarity in bringing to- 
gether, for the first time, things hitherto widely apart, makes 
a flash of novelty and change, the prime condition of emotional 
effect. The Greeks that conquered India, under Alexander, 
must have been surprised at finding in that remote region 
words belonging to their own language. 

It is not, however, the flash of novelty from an original 
conjunction of ideas, a new intellectual situation, that fills up 
the charm of original identities ; it is their effect in alleviating 
or removing the intellectual burdens and toils above described 
as the pains of intellect. When, by a happy stroke of Simi- 
larity, the difficulties of comprehension and of constructiveness, 
just alluded to, are cleared away, there is a joyous reaction 
and elation of the kind common to all forms of relief from 
conflict and oppression of the faculties. The instances will be 
given under separate heads. 

5. New identities in Science — whether classifications, 
inductions, or deductions — increase the number of facts 
comprehended by one intellectual effort. 

This has been abundantly seen in the exposition of Simi- 
larity. Every great generalization, as Gravity, the Atomic 
theory, the Correlation of Force, enables us to include in one 
statement an innumerable host of particulars. To any one 
previously endeavouring to grasp the details, by separate acts 
of attention, the generalizing stroke that sums all up in a 
single expression, brings a toilsome march to a glorious and 
sudden termination. The pleasure is determined by the pre- 
vious pain, by the sense of difficulty overcome, and by the 
position of command attained, after being conscious of the 
former position of grovelling inferiority. 

Sometimes a new discovery operates to solve a contradic- 
tion or anomaly, in which case the result is equally an elation 
of relief from intellectual pain in the form of distraction or 
conflict. 

6. Great discoveries of Practice, besides contributing 
to knowledge, give the elation consequent on the enlarge- 
ment of human power. 

Such discoveries as the steam-engine, which have the 
effect of either diminishing human toil, or increasing its pro- 
ductiveness, minister directly to the sentiment of increased 
power, as well as of increased resources for all purchasable 



276 SYMPATHY. 

enjoyments. In this point of view, the pleasure is not so 
much in the intellect, as in the results upon our other sen- 
sibilities. 

The strongest part of the sentiment that attaches us to 
Truth is due to the urgency of practical ends. The True is 
something that we can rely upon in the pursuit of our various 
interests. Whether it be in firing a deadly shot, or in escap- 
ing a deadly pestilence, truth is the same as precision, accu- 
racy, certainty, in adjusting the means to the end. The 
emotion of Truth is a feeling of Relativity or comparison, a 
rebound or deliverance from the miseries of practical error. 

7. Illustrative Comparisons are another mode of re- 
mitting intellectual toil. 

The happy comparisons or analogies that illuminate the 
obscure conceptions of science, are pleasing from the same 
general cause, the lightening of intellectual labour. The 
celebrated simile of the Cave, in Plato's Republic (see Ap- 
pendix A), is considered to assist us in viewing the difficult 
question relating to the nature of Knowledge. 

The comparisons of poetry introduce another element, not 
strictly of the nature of intellectual pleasure, namely, the 
harmony of the feelings. Possibly the ultimate foundation of 
the pleasure of harmony is the same, but the difference between 
the strictly intellectual form, and what enters into Fine Art, is 
such as to constitute two species in the classification of the 
emotions. 



CHAPTER XL 
SYMPATHY. 

1. Sympathy is to enter into the feelings of another, 
and to act them out, as if they were our own. 

Notice has already been taken of the disposition to assume 
the feelings of others, to become alive to their pleasures and 
pains, to act vicariously under the motive power of those plea- 
sures and pains. We have seen that Pity is tender emotion 
conjoined with sympathy. 



FOUNDATIONS OF SYMPATHY. 277 

2. Sympathy supposes (1) one's own remembered ex- 
perience of pleasure and pain, and (2) a connexion in the 
mind between the outward signs or expression of the 
various feelings and the feelings themselves. 

(1) The good retentiveness or memory for our states of 
pleasure and pain, the intellectual basis of Prudence, is also 
the basis of Sympathy. We cannot sympathize beyond our 
experience, nor up to that experience, without some power of 
recalling it to mind. The child is unable to enter into the 
joys and griefs of the grown-up person; the humble day- 
labourer can have no fellow-feeling with the cares of the rich, 
the great, the idle ; the man without family ties fails to realize 
the feelings of the domestic circle. 

(2) The various feelings have outward signs or symptoms, 
learned for the most part by observation. Noting how we 
ourselves are outwardly affected under onr various feelings, 
we infer the same feelings when we see the same outward 
display in others. The smile, the laugh, the shout of joy, con- 
joined in our own experience with the feeling of delight, when 
witnessed in some one else, are to us an indication and proof of 
that person's being mentally affected, as we remember our- 
selves to have been, when moved to the same manifestations. 

It matters little, so far as concerns reading the emotions, 
whether the knowledge of the signs of feeling is wholly 
acquired, or partly acquired and partly instinctive. There 
are certain signs of feeling that appear to have a primitive 
efficacy to excite the feeling ; as, for example, the moistened 
eye, and the soft wail of grief. But sympathy is something 
more than a mere scientific inference that another person has 
come under a state of tenderness, of fear, or of rage ; it is the 
being forcibly possessed for the time by the very same feeling. 
In this view, there must be a certain energy of expressiveness, 
or suggestiveness, in the signs of feeling, which is favoured 
by the combination of primitive with acquired connexion. 

As examples of the energetic and catching modes of ex- 
pression, we may mention the sound of clearing the throat, 
the yawn, laughter, sobbing. Such emotions as Wonder, 
Fear, Tenderness, Admiration, Anger, are highly infectious, 
when powerfully manifested. 

3. Sympathy is a species of involuntary imitation, or 
assumption, of the displays of feeling enacted in our 
presence ; which is followed by the rise of the feelings 
themselves. 



278 SYMPATHY. 

We are supposed to give way to the manifestations of 
another's feelings, to imitate those manifestations, and as a 
consequence to be affected with the mental state conjoined 
therewith. Even when we do not repeat the displays of feel- 
ing to the full, we have the idea of them, that is, their em- 
bodiment in the nervous currents, to which attaches the 
corresponding state of mind. We come under the influence 
of every pronounced expression of feeling, and if the circum- 
stances be favourable, reproduce it in ourselves, and follow 
out its determinations, the same as if it grew wholly out of 
ourselves. It is thus that we are affected by an orator, or an 
actor, or by the enthusiasm of a multitude. 

4. The following are the chief circumstances favour- 
able to Sympathy. 

(1) Our being disengaged at the time, or free from any 
intense occupation, or prepossession. The existing bent of 
the feelings and thoughts has always a certain hold or per- 
sistence, and is a force to be overcome by any new impression. 

(2) Our familiarity with the mode of feeling represented 
to us. Each one has certain predominant modes of feeling ; 
and these being the most readily excited, we can sympathize 
best with the persons affected by them. The mother easily 
feels for a mother. And obversely, where there is total dis- 
parity of nature or pursuits, there can be comparatively little 
sympathy. The timid man cannot enter into the composure 
of the resolute man ; the cold nature will not understand the 
pains of the ardent lover. 

(3) Our relation to the person determines our sympathy ; 
affection, esteem, reverence, attract our attention and observa- 
tion, and make us succumb to the influence of the manifested 
feelings. On the other hand, hatred or dislike removes us 
almost from the possibility of fellow-feeling ; the name f an- 
tipathy ' is the derivative formed for the negation of sympathy. 
Still, it must be distinctly understood, that love is not indis- 
pensable to sympathy, properly so called ; and that aversion 
may not wholly extinguish it. 

(4) The energy or intensity of the language, tones, and ges- 
tures, necessarily determines the strength of the impression 
and the prompting to sympathy. 

(o) The clearness or distinctness of the expression is of 
great importance in inducing the state on the beholder. This 
is the advantage of persons gifted with the demonstrative 
constitution ; it is the talent of the actor and the elocutionist, 



I 



VICARIOUS ACTION. 279 

and the groundwork of an interesting demeanour in society. 
When the remark is made, that to make others feel, we need 
only to feel ourselves, the power of adequate expression is also 
implied. 

(6) There is in some minds, more than in others, a suscep- 
tibility to the displays of other men's feelings, as opposed to 
the self-engrossed and egotistic promptings. It is a branch 
or species of the receptive or susceptible temperament, the 
constitution more strongly endowed on the side of the senses, 
and less strongly in the centres of activity. To this natural 
difference we may add differences in education and the course 
of the habits, which may confirm the sympathetic impulses on 
the one hand, or the egotistic impulses on the other. 

5. The climax or completion of Sympathy is the de- 
termination to act for another person exactly as for self. 

It is not enough that we become affected nearly as others 
are affected, through the medium of their manifestations of 
feeling, to which we surrender ourselves ; sympathy farther 
supposes that we act vicariously in removing the pain, or in 
promoting the pleasure, that we thus share in. The precise 
nature of this impulse, or its foundation in our mental system, 
is a matter of some subtlety. I have already (Contiguity, 
§ 13) expressed the opinion that it springs not from pure 
volition, but from the agency of the fixed idea. That mere 
volition is not the whole case, may be seen at once by con- 
sidering*, that the short and easy method of getting rid of a 
sympathetic pain, is to turn away from the original, as we 
frequently do when we are unable or indisposed to render 
assistance. But the fact that we cannot always or easily do 
this, shows the persisting tendency of an idea once admitted, 
and the influence it has to work itself out into action, irre- 
spective of the operation of the will in fleeing pain and grasp- 
ing pleasure. The sight of another person enduring hunger, 
cold, fatigue, revives in us some recollection of these states, 
which are painful even in idea. We could, and often do, save 
ourselves this pain by at once averting the view, and looking 
out for another object of attention ; but the operation is one 
of some difficulty ; we feel that there is a power to seize and 
detain us, independent of the will, a power in the expression 
of pain to awaken our own ideas of pain ; and these ideas 
once awakened keep their hold, and prompt us to act for 
relieving the original subject, whose pain we have unwittingly 
borrowed or assumed. 



280 SYMPATHY. 

6. Men in general can sympathize with pleasure and 
pain as such ; but in the kinds and varieties of these, 
our sympathies are limited. 

The mere fact that any one is in pain awakens our sym- 
pathy ; but, unless the causes and attendant circumstances 
also come home to us, the sympathy is neither persistent nor 
deep. Pains that have never afflicted us, that we know 
nothing of, that are, in our opinion, justly or needlessly 
incurred, are dismissed from our thoughts as soon as we are 
informed of the facts. The tears shed by Alexander, at the 
end of his conquests, probably failed to stimulate one respon- 
sive drop in the most sensitive mind that ever heard his story. 

7. The Sympathy of others lends support to our own 
feelings and opinions. 

When any feeling belonging to ourselves is echoed by the 
expression of another person, we are supported and strength- 
ened by the coincidence. In the case of a pleasurable feeling, 
the pleasure is increased ; self-complacency, tender affection, 
the sentiment of power, are all enhanced by the reflexion 
from others. It seems as if the cost of maintaining the plea- 
surable tone were diminished to us ; we can sustain it longer, 
and with augmented intensity. In the case of a painful 
feeling, as fear, remorse, impotence, the concurrence of another 
person bas the same deepening effect; to increase our pains, 
however, is not usually considered a part of sympathy. A 
sympathizing friend endeavours to counterwork depressing 
agencies. Still, the principle is the same throughout ; the 
expressed feelings of a second person are a power in our mind 
for the time ; they impress themselves upon us, more or less, 
according to the various circumstances and conditions that 
give effect to personal influence. The strength and earnestness 
of the language used, its expressiveness and grace, our affec- 
tion, admiration, or esteem of the sympathizer, and our own 
susceptibility to impressions from without, are the chief cir- 
cumstances that rule the effect. The sympathy of persons of 
commanding influence, and especially the concurring sym- 
pathies of a large number, may increase in a tenfold degree 
the pleasure of the original, or self-born feeling. 

8. Through the infection of sympathy, each individual 
is a power to mould the sentiments and views of others. 

This is merely stating the previous proposition in a form 
suited to make it a text for the influence of society at large 



PLEASURES OF THE SYMPATHIZER. 281 

on the opinions of its members. If all individualities were 
equally pronounced and equally balanced, the mutual action 
would result in an 'as you were ; ' but as there is usually a 
preponderance of certain sentiments, opinions, and views, the 
effect is to compress individuality into uniformity in most 
societies. Few persons have the strength of innate impulse 
to resist the feelings of a majority powerfully expressed ; 
hence the uniformity, conservatism, and hereditary continu- 
ance of creeds, sentiments, opinions, that have once obtained 
an ascendancy. Even when men form independent j ndgments, 
they abstain from expressing them, rather than renounce the 
support that social sympathy gives to the individual. 

9. Sympathy is, indirectly, a source of pleasure to the 
sympathizer. 

If the view here taken be correct, the disposition to sym- 
pathize with, and to act for, others does not mainly depend 
on the motives to the will — the pursuit of pleasure, and the 
revulsion from pain. Hence the sacrifice of self that it leads 
to is strictly and properly a sacrifice, a surrender or giving 
up of advantages without consideration of recompense or 
return. This position is indispensable to the vindication of 
disinterested action as a fact of the human mind. The direct, 
proper, immediate result of sympathy is loss, pain, sacrifice to 
the sympathizer. 

Indirectly, however, the giving of sympathy, as well as the 
receiving of it, may be a source of pleasure. What brings 
this about is reciprocity. The person benefited, or others in 
his stead, may make up, by sympathy and good offices re- 
turned, for all the sacrifice. And it is one of the remarkable 
facts of sympathy, the reason of which has been fully given, 
that the giving and receiving of good offices, and the inter- 
change of accordant feelings, make up a large source of plea- 
sure, and form one of the chief characteristics of civilized man. 
Even with considerably less than a full reciprocation, the 
sympathizing and benevolent man may be recompensed for 
his self- surrender ; but there is no evidence that 

in virtuous actions, 



The undertaker finds a full reward, 
Although conferred upon unthankful men. 

What gives plausibility to this doctrine is that society at large 
labours to make up, by benefits and by approbation, for indi- 
vidual unthankf illness or inability. Failing this world, the 
future life is considered as making good all deficiencies. 



282 SYMPATHY. 

10. Sympathy cannot exist upon the extreme of self- 
abnegation ; the regard to the pleasures and pains of others 
is based on the regard to our own. 

Without pleasures and pains of our own, we are ignorant of 
the corresponding experience of our fellows. But this is not 
all. We must retain a sufficient amount of the self-regarding 
element to consider happiness an object worth striving for. 
We learn to value good things first for self; we then transfer 
this estimate to the objects of our sympathy. Should we 
cease U> evince any interest in our own personal welfare, or 
treat our own happiness with indifference, we practically lay 
down the position that happiness is nothing; the consequence 
being to render philanthropy absurd and unmeaning. 

11. A wide range of Knowledge of human beings is 
requisite for large sympathies. 

The carrying out of sympathy, in a career of kind and 
beneficent action, wants a fall knowledge of the sensitive points 
of others. To note and to keep in remembrance the likings 
and dislikings, the interests and the needs, of all persons that 
we are well disposed to, will occupy a considerable share of 
our thoughts and intelligence ; while uniformly to respect all 
these, in our conduct, involves sympathetic self-renunciation 
in a like eminent degree. 

12. Imitation, voluntary and involuntary, from its re- 
semblance to sympathy, is elucidated by a parallel expo- 
sition. 

In their tendencies and results, sympathy and imitation 
differ, but in their foundations they have much in common. 
There is an acquired power, one of the departments of onr 
voluntary education, by which we move our own members to 
the lead of another person ; as when under a master or a fugle- 
man. The nearest approach to proper sympathy is a case of 
involuntary imitation, whereby we contract the gestures, tones, 
phraseology, and general demeanour of those around us. In 
all these points, the activity displayed by others is not merely 
a guide that we may avail ourselves of if we please, it is a power 
that we succumb to ; the child is assimilated to the manners 
prevailing around it, before it receives any express instruction. 

The conditions of imitation are (1) the Spontaneity of the 
active members, and (2) the Sense of the Effect, that is, of the 
conformity with the original. As regards the second condition, 
there is real pleasure in sensibly coinciding with movements 



CONDITIONS OF IMITATION. 283 

witnessed and tones heard ; and a certain painful feeling of 
discord, so long as the coincidence is not attained. In the case 
of children, who look np with deference and admiration to the 
superior powers of their elders, successful imitation has an 
intense charm ; it is to them an advance in the scale of being. 
Many of the amusements of children are imitative ; it is their 
delight to dramatize imposing avocations, to play the soldier, 
the judge, or the schoolmaster. 

There is also exemplified with reference to Imitation, the 
same antithesis or contrast of characters ; the susceptible or 
impressionable on the one hand, as against the self-moved, 
self- originating, on the other. The physical basis of the dis- 
tinction may be supposed to lie in the distinctive endowment 
of the sensory and motor centres ; at ail events, the greater 
susceptibility to impressions received, represents the most 
general condition, alike of sympathy and of imitation. 

The imitator or Mimic must possess facility in the special 
organs employed, as the voice, the features, the gestures. This 
is a mode of spontaneity in those organs, with the farther gift 
of variety, flexibility, or compass. But still more requisite is 
the extreme susceptibility of sense to the effects to be imitated. 
The thorough and entire absorption of these effects by the 
mind is the guide to the employment of the active organs to 
reproduce them. The case is exactly parallel to artistic 
ability — a combination of flexibility of organ with sensibility 
to the special effect. Indeed, as regards a certain number of 
the Fine Arts, — Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, — the Artist's 
vocation is in great part to imitate. And although Imitation 
is supposed to bend to artistic purpose, yet one of the pleasing 
effects of art is the fidelity of the imitation itself; and a con- 
siderable school of Art subordinates ideal beauty to this 
exactness of reproduction. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

IDEAL EMOTION. 

1. The fact that Feeling or Emotion persists after the 
original stimulus is withdrawn, and is revived by purely 
mental forces, makes the life in the Ideal. 



284 IDEAL EMOTION. 

Much of our pleasure and pain is of this ideal kind ; being 
due not to a present stimulus, but to the remembrance of past 
states, either literally recalled, or shaped iuto imaginations 
and forecastings of the future. Recollected approbation or 
censure, the pleasures of affection towards the absent, tho 
memory of a well spent life, are ideal feelings capable of great 
intensity, 

2. I. — The purely Physical organs and processes affect 
the self-subsistence of Emotion. 

Enough has been said on the organic processes (Sensations 
of Organic Life) to show their influence on mental states. In 
the vigour of youth, of health, of nourishment, the mind is 
buoyant of its own accord. Joyous emotion is then persistent 
and strong ; ideal pleasure, the mere recollections of moments 
of delight, will possess a high intensity, by the support given 
to it, under the existing corporeal vigour. In this state of 
things, the excited brain, attracting to itself the abundant 
nourishment, maintains a high pitch of activity, and a like 
pitch of emotional fervour, whatever be the emotion suggested 
at the time. So, in holiday times, all ideal states of genial 
emotion — self-complacency, affection, the sense of power — are 
more than ordinarily intense and prolonged. 

We may add, likewise, as a purely corporeal cause, the 
agency of the stimulating drugs, which, by quickening the 
brain, disposes a higher degree of emotion. Thus, alcohol 
stimulates both the tender emotion, and the sense of power, 
to a notable and ludicrous degree. 

In states of corporeal elation, any pleasing emotion, sug- 
gested by its proper agent, burns brighter ; a compliment is 
more acutely felt. For the same reason, the recall of plea- 
sure by mental suggestion, would be more effective. 

In the powerful and active brain, mental manifestations in 
general are stronger and more continuing ; although there is, 
in most cases, a preference for some one mode of activity — 
Feeling, Will, or Intellect. 

3. II. — The Temperament may be specially adapted 
for Emotion. 

There is a physical foundation for this also, an endowment 
of Brain and other organs, — apparently the glandular or 
secreting organs ; but whether we speculate on the physical 
side or not, we must recognize the mental fact. Some persons 
maintain with ease a persistent flow of comparatively strong 



THE EMOTIONAL ENDOWMENT. 285 

emotion ; others can attain to this only for short intervals. 
The strength of the system inclines to Feeling, and away from 
Will and from Intellect ; such persons, nnless largely endowed 
on the whole, are defective either in activity or in intellect. 
In them, however, emotion is fervid whether actual or ideal ; 
the recollection of pleasure counts as present pleasure. 

The emotional temperament may not make all emotions 
equally strong ; we must allow for specific differences. But 
when we find such leading emotions as Wonder, Tender 
Feeling, Self-complacency, Power, and all the feelings of re- 
bound, in exuberant fulness, we may express the fact by a 
general tendency, or temperament, for emotion. 

The Emotional Temperament is framed for pleasurable 
emotion ; it is a mode of strength, of elation, and buoyancy. 
It does not, therefore, magnify pain as it does pleasure ; on 
the contrary, it has resources to submerge, and to forget, the 
painful feelings. The memory for pains, the ideal life of pain, 
except in so far as it ministers to prudential forethought, and 
vicarious sympathies, is a weakness, a defect of the constitu- 
tion ; showing itself in times of physical weakness, and con- 
quered by physical renovation. 

4. III. — There may be constitutions endowed for Spe- 
cial Emotions. 

It is not to be assumed that the emotions all rise and fall 
together. Besides the general temperament for emotion, there 
are constitutions either endowed or educated for the separate 
emotions. To ascertain which of them may in this way be 
developed singly, is one use of an ultimate analysis of the 
feelings. 

Reverting to the fundamental distinction between the 
ingoing or sensitive side of our nature, and the outgoing or 
active side, we have reason for believing that the two sides as 
a whole are unequally developed in individuals. Now, as 
there are emotions belonging to the sensitive or passive side 
— -Tenderness, for example — and emotions allied to the active 
side, as Power, we may expect specific developments corre- 
sponding to these emotions. A constitutional Tenderness is a 
common manifestation, even without supposing a large emo- 
tional temperament on the whole. The persons so endowed 
will be distinguished for cherishing affection ; and, when there 
are not enough of real objects, the feeling will be manifested 
in ideal forms. 

So the sentiment of Power may be inordinately developed 



286 IDEAL EMOTION. 

in particular persons ; and being so, it will sustain itself, in 
the absence of real occasions, by persistence in the ideal. 
The memory, the anticipation, the imagination of great power 
may give more delight than strong present gratifications of 
sense ; something of this is implied in the toils of ambition, in 
the ascetic self-denial that procures an ascendancy over the 
minds of men. 

The derived emotions, as Complacency, Irascibility, Love 
of Knowledge, will follow the strength of their constituent 
elements ; they also may attain great self-sustaining force, or 
ideal persistence. The feelings of Revenge, Antipathy, or 
Hatred, may burn with almost unremitted glow in a human 
being; the real occasions of it are few, but the system is able 
to maintain the tremor over a large portion of the waking life. 

In cases of remarkable development of special emotions, 
cultivation or habit has usually been superadded to nature. 
Any strong natural bent becomes stronger by asserting itself, 
and acquiring the confirmation of habit ; besides which, edu- 
cation and influence from without may create a strong feeling 
out of one not strong originally. 

5. IV. — Of Mental agencies, in the support of ideal 
emotion, two may be signalized : — (1) The presence of 
some Kindred emotion, and (2) the Intellectual forces. 

(1) It is obvious that a present emotion, of an allied or 
congenial kind, must facilitate the blazing forth of an ideal 
feeling. The emotion of Religious reverence is fed and sup- 
ported by a ritual adapted to stimulate the constituent feelings 
■ — sublimity, fear, and tenderness. 

Present sensations of pleasure enable us to support dreams 
of ideal pleasure. The excitement of music inflames the ideal 
emotions and pleasures of the listener ; whether love, com- 
placency, glory, wealth, ambition : the mental tremor is trans- 
ferred to a new subject. 

(2) The chief intellectual force is Contiguity, or the pre- 
sence of objects strongly associated with the feeling, as when 
the tender feeling towards the absent or the departed is main- 
tained by relics, tokens, or other suggestive circumstances. 

Our favourite emotions are kindled by the view of corre- 
sponding situations in the lives of other men. Biography is 
most charming when it brings before us careers and occupa- 
tions like our own. The young man entering political life is 
excited by the lives of statesmen : the retired politician can 
resuscitate his emotions from the same source. 



DISADVANTAGES OF PLEASUKES IN THE ACTUAL. 287 

An element of Belief is an addition to the power of an 
Ideal Feeling. This is the emotion of Hope, which is ideality 
conpled with belief. There are various ways of inducing 
belief, some being identical with causes already mentioned ; 
snch as the various sources of mental elation. But belief 
may be aided by purely intellectual forces ; in which case it 
has still the same efficacy. 

The foregoing considerations bring before us certain 
collateral aids to feeling, whether actual or ideal. They 
enable us to account for the exceptions to the general rale, 
affirming the superiority of the present or actual, over the 
remembered or ideal. But before making that application, we 
must have before us the following: additional circumstance. 

6. V. — A Feeling generated in the Actual is liable to 
be thwarted by the accompaniments of the situation. 

The reality of a success, or a step in life, is more powerful 
to excite joyous emotion than the dream or idea of it. The 
presence of a friend, or beloved object, is a happiness far 
beyond the thought of them in absence. Still, there are 
disadvantages incidental even to this highest form, of perfect 
fruition. The reality comes in the course of events, without 
reference to our preparation of mind for enjoying it to the full. 
And, what is more, it seldom comes in purity ; it is a concrete 
situation, and usually has some adjuncts of a detracting, not 
to say a painful, nature. The hero of a triumph is perhaps 
1 old, and cannot enjoy it ; solitary, and cannot impart it.' 
Something is present to mar the splendour of every great 
success ; and even moderate good fortune may not be free 
from taint. The beloved object in actual presence is a con- 
crete human being, and not an angelic abstraction. 

Now, in the Ideal, the case is altered. In the first place, 
we do not idealize unless mentally prepared for it ; we uncon- 
sciously choose our own time, and consult our emotional 
fitness ; in fact, it is because we are emotionally capable of 
indulging in a certain reverie of ambition, love, brilliant pros- 
pects, that we fall into it. 

And, in the next place, the Ideal drops out of view the 
disagreeable adjuncts of the reality. If we imagine the 
delight of attaining some object of pursuit, an office, a fortune, 
an alliance, we do not at the same time imagine the alloying 
drawbacks. The predominance of a feeling, by the law of its 
nature, excludes all disagreeables. Nothing but a severe 
discipline, partaking of the highest rigour of prudential foro- 



288 IDEAL EMOTION. 

thought, qualifies a man to body forth the concrete situation 
when he anticipates some great pleasure. Caesar toiled 
through many a weary march, in all weathers, to obtain his 
Triumph ; but he probably did not forecast the mixture of 
base elements with his joyful emotions on that day. 

It is not meant, that the detracting elements in every con- 
crete situation entirely do away with the delights of attaining 
what we struggle for. Moreover, the after recollection of 
these bespattered joys, in suitable moods, will again take the 
form of ideal purity. The married woman whose lot is for- 
tunate and temperament cheerful, will remember her wedding 
day without the worry, the heat, and the headache, which a 
faithful diary would have included in the narrative. 

7. The circumstances now given account for the play 
and predominance of Ideal Emotion. 

All other things being the same, a feeling in the Actual 
would surpass a feeling in the Ideal : the present enjoyment 
of a good bargain, a piece of music, an evening's conversation, 
is much stronger than the remembrance or imagination of 
that enjoyment. Still, in numerous instances, from the opera- 
tion of the causes enumerated, one feeling in the ideal may 
be far stronger than another in the actual. The emotions 
that predominate in the mind may be quite different from 
what the occasions of life would of themselves give support to. 

(1) In what is called day-dreaming, we have a large field 
of examples. Anything occurring to fire one of the strong 
emotions, in circumstances otherwise favourable, takes the 
attention and the thoughts away from other things to fasten 
them upon the objects of the feeling. The youth inflamed 
with the story of great achievements, and bold adventures, 
forgets his home and his father's house, and dreams of an ideal 
history of the same exciting character. The intellect minis- 
ters to the emotion, which without the creation of appropriate 
circumstances, would not be self-supporting. When love is 
the inflaming passion, there is the same obliviousness to the 
stimulation of things present ; the life is wholly ideal. 

This is one acceptation of the phrase ' pleasures of the 
Imagination.' They are the pleasures ideally sustained, to 
which the intellect supplies imagery and circumstances, and in 
that capacity is termed Imagination. The phrase has another 
meaning in Addison's celebrated Essays, namely, the Pleasures 
derived from works of Art, in which case ideality is only an 
incident. In looking at a picture or a statue, we have some- 



OUTLETS FOR IDEAL EMOTION. 289 

tiling that may be called real, and present, although undoubtedly 
a principal design of works of art is to suggest ideal emotions. 
Ideality is an almost ' inseparable accident ' of Art. 

(2) In our Ethical appreciation of conduct we are influ- 
enced by ideal emotions. Disliking, as we do in practice, 
severe restraints, and ascetic exercises, we admire them in 
idea from the great fascination of the sentiment of power. 
The superiority to pleasure is a fine ideal of moral strength, 
and we consecrate it in theoretical morality, however little 
we may care to practise it. 

(3) The Religious sentiment implies a certain class of 
emotions incompletely gratified by the realities of the present 
life. Minds exactly adapted to what this world can supply — 
the ' worldly-minded/ are the contrast of the ' religiously- 
minded. ' The feelings of Sublimity, Love and Fear, in such 
strength as to transcend the limited sphere of the individual 
lot, are easily led into the regions of the unknown and the 
supernatural. 

8. Ideal Emotion is more or less connected with 
Desire. 

When a pleasure exists only as the faded memory of a pre- 
vious pleasure, there accompanies it the consciousness of a 
painful inferiority, with a motive to the will to seek the full 
reality. This is Desire. If the reality is irrecoverable, the 
state is called Regret. Should the ideal feeling be so aided 
by vividness of recollection, or by collateral supports, as to 
approach the fulness of a real experience, we accept it as a 
sufficing enjoyment, and have no desire. In the excitement of 
conversation, we recall dehghtful memories with such force as 
to fill up a satisfying cup of pleasure. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

1. The ^Esthetic Emotions — indicated by the names, 
Beauty, Sublimity, the Ludicrous — are a class of plea- 
surable feelings, sought to be gratified by the compositions 
of Eine Art. 
19 



290 ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

In the perplexity attending the question as to the Beautiful, 
a clue ought to be found in the compositions of Pine Art. 
Such compositions aim at pleasure, but of a peculiar kind, 
qualified by the eulogistic terms ' refined/ ' elevating,' ' en- 
nobling.' A contrast is made between the Agreeable and 
the Beautiful ; between Utility and Beauty ; Industry and 
Fine Art. 

2. The productions of Fine Art appear to be distin- 
guished by these characteristics .: — (1) They have plea- 
sure for their immediate end ; (2) they have no disagree- 
able accompaniments ; (3) their enjoyment is not restricted 
to one or a few persons. 

(1) We assume, for the present, that the immediate end 
of Fine Art is Pleasure ; whereas the immediate end of eat- 
ing and drinking is to ward off pain, disease, death. 

(2) In Fine Art, everything disagreeable is meant to be 
excluded. This is one element of refinement ; the loathsome 
accompaniments of our sensual pleasures mar their purity. 

(3) The objects of Fine Art, and all objects called aesthetic, 
are such as may be enjoyed by a great number ; some indeed 
are open to the whole human race. They are exempt from 
the fatal taint of rivalry and contest attaching to other agree- 
ables ; they draw men together in mutual sympathy ; and are 
thus eminently social and humanizing. A picture or a statue 
can be seen by millions ; a great poem reaches all that under- 
stand its language ; a fine melody may spread pleasure over 
the habitable globe. The sunset and the stars are veiled only 
from the prisoner and the blind. 

It will now be seen why many agreeable and valuable 
things, the ends of industry, can be distinguished from Fine 
Art. Food, clothing, houses, medicine, law, armies, are all 
useful, but not necessarily (although sometimes inciden- 
tally) beautiful. Even Science, although remarkable for the 
absence of monopoly (3), is not aesthetic ; its immediate end 
is not pleasure (1), although remotely it brings pleasures and 
avoids pains ; and it is too much associated with disagree- 
able toil in the acquisition (2). 

Wealth is obviously excluded from the aesthetic class. So 
also is the delight of Power, which is not only a monopolist 
pleasure, but one that implies, in others, the opposite state of 
impotence or dependence. The pleasure of Affection is also 
confined in its scope ; being, however, less confined, and less 
hostile to the interests of others, than power. 



SENSUAL ELEMENTS IN IDEA. 291 

3. The Eye arid the Ear are the aesthetic senses. 

The Muscular feelings, the Organic sensibilities, the sen- 
sations of Taste, Smell, and Touch, cannot be multiplied or 
extended like the effects of light and sound ; their objects are 
engrossed, if not consumed, by the present user. The con- 
sideration of monopoly would be decisive against the whole 
class, while many have other disqualifications. But pleasures 
awakened through the eye and the ear, in consequence of the 
diffusion of light and of sound, can be enjoyed by countless 
numbers. There is a faint approach to this wide participation 
in the case of odours ; but the difference, although only in 
degree, is so great as to make a sufficient line of demarcation 
for our present purpose. 

4. The Muscular and the Sensual elements can be 
brought into Art by being presented in the idea. The 
same may be said of Wealth, Power, Dignity and 
Affection. 

A painter or a poet may depict a feast, and the picture 
may be viewed with pleasure. The disqualifying circum- 
stances are not present in ideal delights. So Wealth, Power, 
Dignity, Affection, as seen or imagined in others, are not ex- 
clusive. In point of fact, mankind derive much real pleasure 
from sympathizing with these objects. They constitute much 
of the interest of surrounding life, and of the historical past ; 
and they are freely adopted into the compositions of the 
artist. 

It may be objected here, that to permit, without reserve, the 
ideal presentation of sensual delights, merely because of its being 
a diffused and not a monopolized pleasure, is to give to Art an 
unbounded licence of grossness; the very supposition proving 
that the domain of Art is not sufficiently circumscribed by the 
three facts above stated. The reply is, that the subjects of Fine 
Art are limited by considerations that are very various in different 
countries and times, and are hardly reducible to any rule. The 
pourtraying of sensual pleasures is objected to on moral and pru- 
dential grounds, as overstimulating men to pursue the reality; 
but there is no fixed line imiversally agreed upon. It is evi- 
dently within the spirit of Fine Art, as implied in the conditions 
above given, to cultivate directly and indirectly the sources of 
pleasure that all can share in, that provoke sympathy, instead of 
rivalry. Hence tales that inflame either the ambition or the sen- 
suality of the human mind, in their consequences, inspire what 
are termed the baser passions, properly definable as the passions 
involving rivalry and hostility, because their objects are such as 
the few enjoy, to the exclusion of the many. 



292 ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

It is in the same spirit that Art is considered to occupy its 
proper province when inspiring sympathy and benign emotions, 
and lulling angry and hateful passion. Hence it allies itself with 
Morality, being in fact almost identified with the persuasive part 
of Morality, as opposed to the obligatory or compulsory sanction. 

5. The source of Beauty is not to be sought in any 
single quality, but in a Circle of Effects.. 

The search after some common property applicable to all 
things named beautiful is now abandoned. Every theorist 
admits a plurality of causes. The common attribute resides 
only in the emotion, and even that may vary considerably 
without passing the limits of the name. 

Among terms used to express aesthetic qualities — Sub- 
limity, Beauty, Grace. Picturesqueness, Harmony, Melody, 
Proportion, Keeping, Order, Fitness, Unity, Wit, and Hu- 
mour — there are a number of synonyms ; but a real distinction 
is marked by the names Sublimity, Beauty, the Ludicrous 
(with Humour). The most comprehensive of the three 
designations is Beauty ; the problem of what are the charac- 
teristics of Fine Art is chiefly attached to it. Sublimity and 
the Ludicrous, which also enter into aesthetic compositions, 
have certain distinctive features, and are considered apart. 

The objects described in these various phrases may occur 
spontaneously in nature ; as, for example, wild and impres- 
sive scenery : they may spring up incidental to other effects, 
as when the contests of nations, carried on for self-protection 
or supremacy, produce grand and stirring spectacles to the 
unconcerned beholders, and to after ages ; or when the struc- 
tures, designed for pure utility, rise to grandeur from their mere 
magnitude, as a ship of war, or a vast building : and lastly, 
they may be expressly produced for their own sake, in which 
case we have a class of Fine Arts, a profession of Artists, and 
an education of people generally in elegance and Taste. 

6. The objects and emotions of Fine Art, so far as 
brought out in the previous exposition of the mind, may 
be resumed as follows : — 

I. — The simple sensations of the Ear and the Eye. 

The pleasurable sensations of sound and of sight come 
within the domain of Fine Art. This view, maintained by 
Knight in his Essay on Taste, is strongly opposed by Jeffrey, 
who denies that there are any intrinsic pleasures due to these 
sensations. On such a point, the appeal must be made to the 



SENSE AND INTELLECT. 293 

experience of mankind. We have, in discussing these senses, 
classified and enumerated their sensations, affirming the in- 
trinsically pleasurable character of a large part of them ; as, 
for example, voluminous sounds, waxing and waning sounds, 
mere light, colour, and lustre. If these are admitted to be 
pleasurable for their own sake (and not for the sake of certain 
suggested emotions), their pretensions to be employed in Art 
are based on their complying with the criteria of the Artistic 
emotions. The pleasures arising from them are sometimes 
called sensuous, as contrasted with the narrow or monopolist 
pleasures of the other senses, called sensual. 

7. II. — Intellect, co-operating with the Senses, fur- 
nishes materials of Art. 

Muscular exercise and repose seen or contemplated, as in 
the spectacle of games, would be regarded as an aesthetic 
pleasure. The pleasures of the monopolist senses, when pre- 
sented in idea by the painter or the poet, attain the refinement 
of art. 

The sensations of bodily health and vigour are in them- 
selves exclusive and sensual ; in their idea, as when we con- 
template the outward marks of health, they are artistic. The 
actual enjoyment of warmth or coolness is sensual, the sug- 
gestion of these in a picture is refined and artistical. Pleasant 
odours are frequently described in poetry. The feeling of soft 
warm touch ideally excited is a feeling of art. 

The intervention of language (an intellectual device) is a 
means of overcoming the disagreeable adjuncts of our senses, 
and of rendering the sensual pleasures less adverse to artistic 
handling. There are ways of alluding to the offensive pro- 
cesses of organic life, that deprive them of half their evil, by 
removing all their grossness. This is the purpose of the 
Rhetorical figure, called Euphemism ; it is a mode of refine- 
ment describable as the purification of pleasure. 

8. III. — The Special Emotions, either in their 
actuality, or in idea, enter largely into Fine Arts. 

This has been already pointed out. The first class, the 
Emotions of Relativity — Wonder, Surprise, Novelty — are 
sought in Art, as in other pleasures not artistic. The emotion 
of Fear is of itself painful, and would be excluded by the 
artist, but for its incidentally contributing to artistic pleasure. 
Tender emotion in actuality is too narrow, but in idea it is 
very largely made use of as a pleasure of Art ; the objects that 



294 ^ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

inspire tender emotion, that rouse ideal affection, are univer- 
sally denominated beautiful. According to Burke, tenderness 
is almost identified with beauty: and in the Association 
theory of Alison and Jeffrey, the power to suggest the warm 
human affections is placed above all other causes ; the feminine 
exterior being considered beautiful as bodying forth the graces 
and amiability of the character. The egotistic group of 
emotions — Self-complacency, Love of Approbation, Power, 
Irascibility — even ideally viewed, are adverse to the spirit of 
Art, unless we can sympathize with the occasions of them, 
in which case their manifestation gives us pleasure. The 
situation of Pursuit, in idea, is eminently artistic ; plot- 
interest enters into most kinds of poetry. The Emotions of 
Intellect would be aesthetic, from their broad and liberalizing 
character, and from their not containing, either directly or 
indirectly, the element of rivalry ; but the province of Truth 
and Science, in which they appear, is, for the most part, 
too arduous to be a source of unmixed pleasure. 

9. IV. — Harmony is an especial source of artistic 
pleasure. 

It was noted (Classification of Emotions, § 2), that 
emotional states are produced from sensations, through Har- 
mony and Conflict ; Harmony giving pleasure, and Conflict 
pain. It is in the works of Pine Art, that the pleasures of 
Harmony are most extensively cultivated. The illustration 
of this position in detail would cover a large part of the 
field of ^Esthetics. The law that determines the pleasure of 
Harmony and the pain of Conflict, is a branch or application 
of a higher law, the law of Self- conservation ; in harmony, we 
may suppose that the nerve currents are mutually supporting ; 
in conflict, that there is opposition and loss of power. 

10. The pleasurable Sensations of Sound, and their 
Harmonies, constitute a department of Fine Art. 

In Music, we have, first, all the pleasing varieties of simple 
sound — sweet sounds, voluminous sounds, waxing and waning 
sounds ; and next, the combinations of sound in Melody and 
in Harmony, according to laws of proportion, now arith- 
metically determined. 

The musical note is a sound of uniform Pitch, or of a con- 
stant number of beats per second." In this uniformity, there is 
a source of pleasure ; it contains the element of harmony. The 
regularity of the beats is more agreeable than irregularity. 



HARMONY. 295 

The same fact enters into a musical air or melody, and re- 
appears in the harmonies and proportions of visible objects. 

Harmony is the concurrence of two or more sounds re- 
lated, as to number of vibrations and beats, in a simple ratio. 
The Octave is the most perfect harmony, the numbers being as 
two to one. In this concord, every second beat of the higher 
note coincides with every beat of the lower ; and, between 
these coinciding and double beats, there is a solitary beat. The 
intervals, therefore, are equal, but the beats unequal ; a double 
and a single alternating. This is the first departure from 
uniformity towards variety, and the effect is more acceptable, 
probably on that ground. In the concord of a Fifth, every 
third vibration of the higher note coincides with every second 
of the lower ; and between these two coincidences, there are 
three single beats (two in one note and one in the other) at 
intervals varying as 1, J, ^, 1 respectively. In the concord of 
a Fourth, every fourth vibration of the higher note coincides 
with every third of the lower ; and between the two coinci- 
dences, there are five single beats (three in one note and two 
in the other), at intervals of 1, ^, f, f, f, 1. In these two 
last mentioned concords, there is a mixture of different sets 
of equal intervals : the coinciding or double beat, and the 
single beats recurring in the same order of unequal but pro- 
portioned intervals. 

The element of Time, in music, is probably the same effect 
on the larger scale. Besides allowing harmonies to be 
arranged, the observance of time in the succession of notes is 
a kind of concord between what is past and what is to come 
— a harmony of expectation — and the violation of it is a jar or 
discord, and is painful according to the sensitiveness of the ear. 

The varying Emphasis of music, properly regulated, adds 
to the pleasure, on the law of Relativity, or alternation and 
remission, as in light and shade. According as sounds are 
sharp and loud, is it necessary that they be remitted and varied. 
The gradations of pitch have respect to variety, as well as to 
harmony and melody. Since a work of Art aims at giving plea- 
sure to the utmost, it courts variety in every form, only not 
to produce discords, or to miss harmonies. 

Cadence is an effect common to music and to speaking, 
and refers, in the first instance, to the close or fall of the 
melody. An abrupt termination is unpleasing, partly from 
breach of expectation, and partly because, on the principle of 
relativity, the sudden cessation of a stimulus gives a shock 
analogous to the sudden commencement. Cadence farther 



296 .ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

includes, by a natural extension, the variation of emphasis and 
pitch ; the gentle commencement, the gradual rise to a height 
or climax, and the ending fall ; there being a series of lesser 
rises and falls throughout the piece. Alternation or variety is 
the sole guide to this effect, which enters alike into musical 
performance, and into oratorical pronunciation. 

There is, in Music, a superadded effect, namely, the imita- 
tion of emotional expression, by which various emotions may 
be directly stimulated, as Tenderness, Devotion, the Exulta- 
tion of Power. 

This imitation is effected by varying the sounds them- 
selves, but still more through the pace, or comparative 
rapidity and emphasis of the notes ; the very same rule go- 
verning music and poetry. 

11. The pleasurable Sensations of Sight, with their 
Harmonies, are a distinct source of the Beautiful in Art. 

Mere light is pleasant in proper limits and alternation ; 
whence the art of Light and Shade. The employment of 
colour is regulated by harmony ; there is a mutual balance of 
the colours, according to the proportions of the solar spec- 
trum. Red, yellow, and blue are accounted the primary 
colours. The eye, exposed for some time to one colour, as 
red, desiderates some other colour, and is most of all de- 
lighted with the complementary colour ; thus red harmonizes 
with green (formed out of yellow and blue) ; blue with orange 
or gold (a mixture of red and yellow) ; yellow with violet 
(red and blue). Colour Harmony is the maximum of stimu- 
lation of the optic nerve, with the minimum of exhaustion. 

The influence of Lustre has been already described. It is 
the outburst of sparkles of light on a ground of comparative 
sombreness. 

In the muscular susceptibility of sight, the elementary 
pleasurable effect is the waxing and waning motion, and the 
Curve Line, the two being in character the same. This has 
always been a conspicuous part of the beauty of Form. 

The Harmonies of Sight are exemplified by movements, 
as the Dance, where also there is observance of Time. 

In still life, there are harmonies of Space. In arranging 
objects in a row, equality of intervals has a pleasing effect, on 
the principle already quoted. The equality may be combined 
with variety, by introducing larger breaks, also at equal in- 
tervals, which gives subordinate gradations, with a unity in 
the whole. 



HAKMONIES OF SPACE. 297 

The subdivision of lines or spaces should be in simple 
proportions, as halves, thirds, fourths ; these simple ratios 
constitute the beauty of oblong and triangular figures, and 
the proportions of rooms and buildings. An oblong, having 
the length three times the width, is more agreeable to the 
observant eye than if no ratio were discernible. A room, 
whose length, width, and height follow simple ratios, as 4 to 
3, or 3 to 2, is well proportioned. Equality of angles, in 
angular figures, is preferable to inequality ; and the angles of 
30°, 45°, or 60°, being simple divisions of the quadrant, are 
more agreeable than angles that are incommensurate. 

In Straight Forms, the laws of proportion determine 
beauty, subject to considerations of Fitness, to be presently 
noticed. In Curved Forms, the primitive charm of the curve 
line may be combined with proportions and with pleasing 
associations. The circle, and the oval, contain an element of 
proportion. Besides these effects^ there is in the curved out- 
line the suggestion of ease and abandon. The mechanical 
members of the human body, being chiefly levers fixed at the 
end, naturally describe curves with their extremities ; it is 
only after a painful discipline that they can draw straight 
lines. Hence straightness, in certain circumstances, is sug- 
gestive of restraint, and curvature of ease. The beauty of the 
straight form, when it is beautiful, will arise partly from 
proportion, and partly from the obvious utility of order in 
arrangement. The straight furrows of a ploughed field are 
agreeable, if our mind is occupied with the ploughman's 
labour, not on the side of its arduousness, but on the side of 
its power and skill. 

In the dimension of up and down, form or outline is inter- 
woven with the paramount consideration of sustaining things 
against the force of gravity ; in other words, we have to deal 
with Pressure and Support. The evils of loss of support are 
so numerous, so pressing, so serious, that adequacy on this 
score is one of our incessant solicitudes, a real ' affection of 
Fear.' The mere suggestion of a possible catastrophe from 
weakness of support is a painful idea ; and the existence of 
such pains renders the appearances of adequate support a kind 
of joyful relief. When a great mass has to be supported, we 
gaze with satisfaction upon the firmness of the foundations, 
the width of the base, the tenacity of the columns or other 
supports. The pyramid, and the well-buttressed wall are 
objects that we can think of with comfort, when more than 
usually oppressed with examples of fiimsiness and insecurity. 



298 ESTHETIC EMOTIONS; 

Sufficiency of apparent support does not exhaust the in- 
terest of the counteraction of gravity. Next to doing work 
adequately, is doing it with the least expenditure of means or 
labour. It gratifies the feeling of Power, and is an aspect of 
the Sublime, to see great effects produced with the appearance 
of Ease on the part of the agent. The pyramid, although 
satisfactory in one point of view, is apt to appear as gross, 
heavy, clumsy, if used merely to support its own mass*. 
We obtain a superadded gratification, when we see an object 
raised aloft without such expenditure of material and such 
width of base. In these respects, the obelisk is a refinement 
on the pyramid. The column is a still greater refinement ; for 
in a row of columns, we discern a satisfactory, and yet light r 
support to a superincumbent mass. Another modification of 
support for smaller heights is the pilaster, which is diminished 
near the bottom, and also near the top, retaining breadth of 
base, and a resisting thickness in the middle ; there being an 
opportunity also for the curved outline. Vases, drinking 
cups, wine glasses, and other table ware, combine adequate with 
easy support, while availing themselves of proportions and the 
curved form. The tree, with its spreading roots and ample 
base, its slender and yet adequate stem, supporting a volu- 
minous foliage, is an example of support that never ceases to 
afford gratification. 

The beauty of Symmetry is in some cases due to propor- 
tion, and in others to adequacy of support. When the two 
sides of a human face are not alike, there is a breach of pro- 
portion ; a wasted limb is both disproportioned and inadequate 
for support. 

The beauties of Visible Movement might be expanded in 
a similar detail. The curve movement is a beauty — that is, a 
refined pleasure in itself. Upward movements, being against 
gravity, suggest power ; so also rapid projectile movements,, 
as the cannon ball. The spectacle of a dance combines a 
number of effects already recognized. 

12. In the Fine Arts, there are Complex Harmonies ; 
as when Sound, Colour, Movement, Form, are in keeping 
with each other, and with the intention of the work as a 
whole. 

There is no intrinsic suitability of a sound to a colour, or 
of a colour to a form ; a voluminous sound is not more in har- 
mony with red than with blue. But the moods of mind 
generated by sensation may have a certain community; at 



COMPLEX HABMONIES. 299 

one time, the prevailing key may be pungent excitement, at 
another time, voluminous pleasure. Through this community, 
glare and sparkle chime in with rapid movements ; sombre 
light and shade with slow movements. There is the same 
adaptation of musical measures to the state of the mind as 
determined by spectacle, or by emotion. The dying fall in 
music harmonizes with the waxing and waning movement, or 
the curved line. 

13. A. wide department of the Beautiful is expressed 
under the Fitness of means to ends. 

This has been already brought into view in the discussion 
of Support, which is the fitness of machinery to a mechanical 
end, namely, the counteraction of gravity. On account of the 
pleasure thus obtained, we erect structures that have no other 
end than to suggest fitness* In all kinds of mechanism, where 
power is exerted to produce results, there is a like feeling. 
When anything is to be done, we are sympathetically pained 
in discovering the means to be inadequate ; and being often 
subject to such pains, there is a grateful reaction in contem- 
plating a work where the power is ample for its end. There 
is a farther satisfaction in seeing ends accomplished with the 
least expenditure of means. The appearances of great labour, 
effort, or difficulty, are unpleasant ; a man bending beneath a 
load, a horse sticking in the mud r give a depressing idea of 
weakness. The noise of friction in machinery y and the sight 
of roughness and rust, suggestive of friction, are calculated to 
pain our sensibilities. On the other hand, all the indications 
of comparative ease in the performance of work, even although 
illusory, are a grateful rebound of sympathetic power. The 
gentle breeze moving a ship, or a windmil], gives us this 
illusory gratification. Clean, bright tools are associated with 
ease and efficiency in doing their work. 

The beauties of Order may consist of mere proportion, but 
they are still oftener the effects conducive to the attainment 
of ends. In a well kept house, or shop, everything is in its 
place ; there are fit tools and facilities for whatever is to be 
done ; all the appearances are suggestive- of such fitness and 
facility: although it may happen that the reality and the 
appearance are opposed. The arts of cleanliness, in the first 
instance, are aimed at the removal of things injurious and 
loathsome ; going a step farther, they impart whiteness of sur- 
face, lustre and brilliancy, which are aesthetic qualities. The 
neat, tidy, and trim, may be referred to Order ; even when going 



300 ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

beyond what is necessary for useful ends, neatness suggests 
a mind alive to the orderly, which is a means to the useful. 

14. The feeling of Unity in Diversity, considered as a 
part of Beauty, owes its charm principally to Order, and 
to Intellectual relief. 

The mind, overburdened with a multitude of details, seeks 
relief in order and in unity of plan. The successful reduction 
of a distracting host of particulars to simple and general 
heads, as happens through great discoveries of generalization, 
gives the thrill of a great intellectual relief. In all works 
abounding in detail, we crave for some comprehensive plan, 
enabling us to seize the whole, while we survey the parts. A 
poem, a history, a dissertation in science, a lecture, needs to 
have a discernible principle of order or unity throughout. 

15. It is a principle of Art, founded in the nature of 
the feelings, to leave something to Desire. 

To leave something to the Imagination is better than to 
express the whole. What is merely suggested is conceived in 
an ideal form and colouring. Thus, in a landscape, a winding 
river disappears from the sight ; the distant hazy mountains 
are realms for the fancy to play in. Breaks are left in a 
story, such as the reader may fill up. The proportioning and 
adjusting of the expressed and the suggested, would depend 
on the principles of Ideal Emotion. 

16. Under so great a variety of exciting causes, a cer- 
tain latitude must be allowed in characterizing the feeling 
of Beauty. 

Experience proves, that all these different effects are not 
merely modes of pleasure, but congenial in their mixture. 
The common character of the emotion may be expressed 
as refined pleasure. Even when not great in degree, it has 
the advantage of durability. The many confluent streams of 
pleasure run into a general ocean of the pleasurable, where 
their specialities are scarcely distinguishable. 

When Beauty is spoken of in a narrow sense, as excluding 
Sublimity, it points to the more purely passive delights, 
exemplified in sensuous pleasures, harmonies, tender emotion. 
Burke's identification of delicacy (as in the drooping flower) 
with beauty, hits the passive delights, as contrasted with the 
active. The boundary is not a rigid one. Much of the 
beauty of fitness appeals to the sentiment of power, the basis 
of the Sublime. 



THE SUBLIME. 301 

17. The Sublime is the sympathetic sentiment of 
superior Power in its highest degrees. 

The objects of sublimity are, for the most part, such 
aspects and appearances as betoken great might, energy, or 
vastness, and are thereby capable of imparting sympathetically 
the elation of superior power. 

Human might or energy is the literal sublime, and the 
point of departure for sublimity in other things. Superior 
bodily strength, as indicated either by the size and form of 
the members, or by actual exertion, lifts the beholder's mind 
above its ordinary level, and imparts a certain degree of 
grateful elation. The same may be said of other modes of 
superior power. Greatness of intellect, as in the master 
minds of the human race, is interesting as an object of mere 
contemplation. Moral energy, as heroic endurance and self- 
denial, has inspired admiration in all times. Great practical 
skill in the various departments of active life awakens the 
same admiring and elevating sentiment. The spectacle of 
power in organized multitudes is still more imposing, and 
reflects an undue importance on the one man that happens to 
be at the head. 

The Sublime of Inanimate things is derived or borrowed, 
by a fictitious process, from the literal sublimity of beings 
formed like ourselves. So great is our enjoyment of the 
feeling of superior power, that we take delight in referring 
the forces of dead matter to a conscious mind ; in other words, 
personification. Starting from some known estimate, as in 
the physical force of an average man to move one hundred- 
weight, we have a kind of sympathetic elation in seeing many 
hundredweights raised with ease by water or steam power. 
When the spectacle is common, we become indifferent to it ; 
and we are re-awakened only by something different or 
superior. 

The Sublime of Support is of frequent occurrence. It 
applies to the raising of heavy weights ; to the upward pro- 
jection of bodies ; and to the sustaining of great masses at an 
elevation above the surface, as piles of building, and moun- 
tains. All these effects imply great upheaving power, equiva- 
lent to human force many times multiplied. The more upright 
or precipitous the elevated mass, the greater the apparent 
power put forth in sustaining it. Sublimity is thus con- 
nected with height ; from which it derives its name. 

The Sublime of Active Energy, or power visibly at work, 
is seen in thunder, wind, waves, cataracts, rivers, volcanoes, 



302 .ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

steam power, ordnance, accumulated animal or human force. 
Movement in the actual is more impressive than the quiescent 
results of movement. 

The Sublime of Space, or of Largeness of Dimensions, is 
partly owing to the circumstance that objects of great power 
are correspondingly large. The ocean is voluminous. As 
regards empty space, great extent implies energy to traverse 
it, or mass to occupy it. 

An Extended Prospect is sublime from the number of its 
contained objects, each possessing a certain element of im- 
pressiveness. There is also a sense of intellectual range or 
grasp, as compared with the confinement of a narrow spot ; which 
is one of the many modes of the elation of superior power. 

The Great in Time or Duration is Sublime ; not mere 
duration in the abstract, but the sequence of known trans- 
actions and events, stretching over many ages. In this too, 
there is an intellectual elevation, and a form of superior 
might. The far past, and the distant future, to a mind that 
can people the interval, arouse the feeling of the sublime. 
The relics of ancient nations, the antiquities of the geological 
ages, inspire a sublimity, tinged with melancholy and pathos, 
from the retrospect of desolation and decay. 

There is an incidental connexion of the Sublime with 
Terror. Properly, the two states of mind are hostile and 
mutually destructive ; the one raises the feeling of energy, 
the other depresses it. In so far as a sublime object gives us 
the sense of personal, or of sympathetic danger, its sublimity 
is frustrated. The two effects were confounded by Burke in 
his Theory of the Sublime. 

18. The foregoing principles might be tested and exem- 
plified by a survey of Natural Objects. It is sufficient to 
advert to Human Beauty. 

The Mineral world has its aesthetic qualities, chiefly colour 
and form. In Vegetable nature, there are numerous effects, 
partly of colour and form, partly of support, and partly of 
quasi-human expression. The beauties of scenery — of moun- 
tains, rocks, valleys, rivers, plains — are referable, without 
much difficulty, to the constituent elements above indicated. 
The Animal Kingdom contains many objects of aesthetic in- 
terest, as well as many of an opposite kind. The approach 
to humanity is the special circumstance ; the suggestion of 
feeling is no longer fictitious, but real ; and the interest is little 
removed from the human. 



BEAUTY OF NATURAL OBJECTS. 303 

As regards Humanity, there are first the graces of the 
Exterior. The effects of colour and brilliancy, — in the skin, 
the eyes, the hair, the teeth, — are intrinsically agreeable. The 
Figure is more contested. The proportions of the whole are 
suited for sufficient, and yet light support ; while the modifi- 
cations of foot and limb are adapted for forward movement. 
The curvature of the outline is continuous and varying (in the 
ideal feminine figure), passing through points of contrary 
flexure, from convex to concave, and, again resuming the 
convex. 

The beauties of the Head and Face involve the most difficult 
considerations. In so far as concerns the symmetry of the 
two halves, and the curved outlines, we have intelligible 
grounds ; but the proportional sizes of the face, features, and 
head, are determined by no general principles. We must 
here accept from our customary specimens a certain standard 
of mouth, nose, forehead, &c, and refine upon that by bring- 
ing in laws of proportion, curvature^ and the susceptibility to 
agreeable expression. This is the only tenable mean between 
the unguarded theory of Buffier and Eeynolds, who referred 
all beauty to custom, and the attempts to explain everything 
by proportion and expression. A Negro or a Mongol sculptor 
would be not only justified, but necessitated, to assume an 
ideal type different from the Greek, although he might still 
introduce general aesthetic considerations, that is to say, pro- 
portions, curves, fitness, and expression, so as not to be the 
imitator of any one actual specimen, or even of the most com- 
mon variety. The same applies to the beauties seen in 
animals. The prevailing features of the species are assumed, 
and certain considerations either of universal beauty, or of 
capricious adoption, are allowed to have weight in determin- 
ing the most beautiful type. 

The graces of Movement, as such, are quite explicable. In 
the primitive effects of movement are included the curve line 
and the ; dying fall.' The movements, as well as attitudes, of 
a graceful form, can hardly be other than graceful. 

The suggestion of Tender and of Sexual Feeling is con- 
nected with Colour, with Form, and with Movements. The 
tints of the face and of the surface generally are associated with 
the soft warm contact. By a link of connexion, partly natural 
(the result of a general law), the rounded and tapering form 
is suggestive of the living embrace ; lending an interest to the 
hard cold marble of the statuary. The movements that excite 
the same train of feelings are known and obvious. 



304 .ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

On all theories of Beauty, much is allowed to the Ex- 
pression of pleasing states of mind. The amiable expression 
is always cheering to behold ; and a cast of features per- 
manently suited to this expression is beautiful. 

When we inquire into what constitutes beauty in the 
human character, or the mental attributes of a human being, we 
find that the foundation of the whole is self- surrender. This 
is apparent in the virtues (also called graces) of generosity, 
affection, and modesty or humility; all which imply that the 
io dividual gives up a portion of self for others. 

THEORIES OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 

It is usual to carry back the history of the question of Beauty 
to Sokrates and Plato. 

The question of Beauty is shortly touched upon, in one of the 
Sokratic conversations reported in the Memorabilia. Sokrates 
holds that the beautiful and the good, or useful, are the same ; a 
dung-basket, if it answers its end, may be a beautiful thing, 
while a golden shield, not well formed for use, is an ugly thing. 
{Memorabilia III. 8.) 

In the Dialogue of Plato, called Hippias Major, there is a dis- 
cussion on the Beautiful. "Various theories are propounded, and 
to all of them objections, supposed insuperable, are made by the 
Platonic Sokrates. First, The Suitable, or the Becoming, is said 
to constitute beauty. To this, it is objected, that the suitable, or 
becoming, is what causes objects to appear beautiful, not what 
makes them really beautiful. Secondly, The Useful or Profit- 
able. Much is to be said for this view, but on close inspection 
(says Sokrates) it will not hold. Thus Power, which when em- 
ployed for useful, purposes is beautiful, may be employed for evil, 
and cannot be beautiful. If you qualify by saying — Power em- 
ployed for good — you make the good and the beautiful cause and 
effect, and therefore different things, which is absurd. Thirdly, 
The beautiful is a particular variety of the Agreeable or Pleasur- 
able, being all those things that give pleasure through sight and 
hearing. Sokrates, however, demands why these pleasures should 
be so much distinguished over other pleasures. He is not satisfied 
to be told that they are the most innocuous and the best ; an 
answer that (he says) leads to the same absurdity as before ; the 
beautiful being made the cause, the good the effect ; and the two 
thereby accounted different things. 

Turning now to the Republic (Book VII.), we find a mode of 
viewing the question, more in accordance with the mystic and 
transcendental side of Plato. Speaking of the science of Astro- 
nomy, he says (in summary) : — ' The heavenly bodies are the 
most beautiful of all visible bodies, and the most regular of all 
visible movements, approximating most nearly, though still with 
a long interval of inferiority, to the ideal figures and movements 



THEORIES OF BEAUTY — PLATO. 305 

of genuine and self-existent Forms — quickness, slowness, number, 
figure, &c, as they are in themselves, not visible to the eye, but con- 
ceivable only by reason and intellect. The movements of the 
heavenly bodies are exemplifications, approaching nearest to the 
perfection of these ideal movements, but still falling greatly short 
of them. They are like visible circles or triangles drawn by some 
very exact artist ; which, however beautiful as works of art, are 
far from answering to the conditions of the idea and its definition, 
and from exhibiting exact equality and proportion.' All this is 
in accordance with the Ideal theory of Plato. Ideas are not only 
the pre-existing causes of real things, but the highest and most 
delightful objects of human contemplation. 

It is remarked by Mr. Grote that the Greek to kci\6v includes, 
in addition to the ordinary meanings of beauty, the fine, the hon- 
ourable, the exalted. 

Aristotle alludes to the nature of Beauty, in connexion with 
Poetry. The beauty of animals, or of any objects composed of 
parts, involves two things — orderly arrangement and a certain 
magnitude. Hence an animal may be too small to be beautiful ; 
or it may be too large, when it cannot be surveyed as a whole. 
The object should have such magnitude as to be easily seen. 

Among the lost writings of St. Augustin was a large treatise 
on Beauty ; and it appears from incidental allusions in the extant 
works, that he laid especial stress on Unity, or the relation of the 
parts of a work to the whole, in one comprehensive and har- 
monious design. 

In Shaftesbury's Characteristics, the Beautiful and the Good 
are combined in one lofty conception, and a certain internal sense 
(the Moral Sense) is assumed as perceiving both alike. 

In the celebrated Essays of Addison, on The Pleasures of the 
Imagination, the aesthetic effects are resolved into Beauty, 
Sublimity, and Novelty ; but scarcely any attempt is made to pur- 
sue the analysis of either Beauty or Sublimity. 

Htjtcheson maintains the existence of a distinct internal sense 
for the perception of Beauty. He sfciil, however, made a resolu- 
tion of the qualities of beautiful objects into combinations of 
variety with uniformity ; but did not make the obvious inference, 
that the sense of beauty is, therefore, a sense of variety with uni- 
formity. He discarded the considerations of fitness, or the second- 
ary aptitudes of these qualities. 

In the article ' Beau.' in the French Encyclope'die, the author, 
Diderot, announced the doctrine that ' Beauty consists in the 
perception of Eelations.' This is admitted on all hands to be too 
wide and too vague. 

Pere Bueeier. Pere Buffier identified Beauty with the type 
of each species ; it is the form at once most common and most 
rare. Among faces, there is but one beautiful form, the others 
being not beautiful. But while only a few are modelled after the 
ugly forms, a great many are modelled after the beautiful form. 
Beauty, while itself rare, is the model to which the greater num- 
20 



306 ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

ber conform. Among fifty noses we may find ten well-made, all 
after the same model ; whereas out of the other forty, not above 
two or three will be found of the same shape. Handsome people 
have a greater family likeness than ugly people. A monster is what 
has least in common with the human figure ; beauty is what has 
most in common. The true proportion of parts is the most com- 
mon proportion. From this it might be concluded that beauty is 
simply what we are most accustomed to, and therefore arbitrary 
— a conclusion that Buffier does not dispute. At least, hitherto, 
he thinks, the essential character of beauty has not been discovered. 
If there be a true beauty, it must be that which is most common 
to all nations. 

Sir Joshua Keykolds, in his theory of beauty, has followed 
Pere Buffier. The deformed is what is uncommon ; beauty is 
what is above ' all singular forms, local customs, particularities, 
and details of every kind.' He gives, however, a turn to the doc- 
trine, in meeting the objection that there are distinct forms of 
beauty in the same species, as those represented by the Hercules, 
the Gladiator, and the Apollo. He observes that each of these is 
a representation, not of an individual, but of a class, within the 
class man, and is the central idea of its class. Not any one gives 
the ideal beauty of the species man ; * for perfect beauty in any 
species must combine all the characters which are beautiful in 
that species.' 

Hogarth, in his Analysis of Beauty, enumerates six elements 
as variously entering into beautiful compositions. (1) Fitness of 
the parts to the design for which. the object was formed. Twisted 
columns are elegant; but, as they convey an idea of weakness, 
they displease when required to bear a great weight. Hogarth 
resolves proportion (which some consider an independent source of 
beauty) into fitness. The proportions of the parts are determined 
by the purpose of the whole. (2) Variety, if it do not degenerate 
into confusion, is a distinct element of beauty. The gradual 
lessening of the pyramid is a kind of variety. (3) Uniformity or 
symmetry is a source of beauty only when rendered necessary by 
the requirements of fitness. The pleasure arising from the 
symmetry of the two sides of the body, is really produced by the 
knowledge that the correspondence is intentional and for use. 
Painters always avoid regularity, and prefer to take a building at 
an angle rather than in front. Uniformity is often necessary to 
give stability. (4) Simplicity (as opposed to complexity), when 
joined with variety, is pleasing, because it enables the eye to enjoy 
the variety with ease ; but, without variety, it is wholly insipid. 
Compositions in sculpture are generally kept within the boundary 
of a cone or pyramid, on account of the simplicity or variety of 
those figures. (5) Intricacy is pleasing because the unravelling of 
it gives the interest of pursuit. Waving and serpentine lines are 
beautiful, because they ' lead the eye a wanton kind of chase.' 
(6) Magnitude contributes to raise our admiration. 

Hogarth's best known views refer to the beautiful in Lines. 



THEORIES OF BEAUTY— BURKE. 307 

Waving lines are more beautiful than straight lines, because they 
are more varied; and among waving lines, there is but one 
entitled to be called the Line of Beauty, the others bulging too 
much, and so being gross and clumsy, or straightening too much, 
and thereby becoming lean and poor. But the most beautiful line 
is the serpentine line, called, by Hogarth, the Line of Grace, This 
is the line drawn once round, from the base to the apex, of a long, 
slender cone. As contrasted with straight lines, the lines of beauty 
and grace possess an intrinsic power of pleasing. Hogarth pro- 
duced numerous instances of the beauty of those forms, and in- 
ferred that objects were beautiful according as they could be ad- 
mitted into composition. This doctrine, although denied by Alison, 
contains a portion of the truth. 

Burke's theory, contained in his Essay on the Sublime and 
Beautiful, is couched in a material phraseology. He says that 
beautiful objects have the tendency to produce an agreeable relaxa- 
tion of the fibres. Thus, ' smooth things are relaxing ; sweet things, 
which are the smooth of taste, are relaxing too ; and sweet smells, 
which bear a great affinity to sweet tastes, relax very remarkably.' 
* "We often apply the quality of sweetness metaphorically to visual 
objects ; ' and following out this remarkable analogy of the senses, he 
purposes ' to call sweetness the beautiful of the taste. 1 

His theory leads him to put an especial stress on the beauty of 
smoothness, a quality so essential to beauty, he says, that he cannot 
recollect anything beautiful but what is smooth. ' In trees and 
flowers, smooth leaves are beautiful; smooth slopes of earth in 
gardens ; smooth streams in landscapes ; smooth coats of birds and 
beasts in animal beauty ; in fine women, smooth skins ; and, in 
several sorts of ornamental furniture, smooth and polished sur- 
faces.' The one-sidedness of this view was obvious enough. 
Smoothness is one element of beauty, in certain circumstances, and 
for obvious reasons. The smoothness and the softness of the 
animal body are connected with the pleasure of touch. The 
smoothness of polished surfaces is the condition of their brilliancy ; 
an effect enhanced by sharp angles, although Burke alleges that 
he does not find any natural object that is angular, and at the 
same time beautiful. The 'smooth, shaven green' of well kept 
lawns is associated with the fit or the useful ; it suggests the in- 
dustry, attention, or art, bestowed upon it by the opulent and 
careful owner. The same smoothness and trim regularity, Stewart 
observes, would not make the same agreeable suggestions in a 
sheep walk, a deer park, or the neighbourhood of a venerable ruin. 
Again, in the moss-rose, the opposite of smoothness is beautiful. 

It has been remarked by Price (and Dugald Stewart concurs in 
the remark) ' that Burke's general principles of beauty — smooth- 
ness, gradual variation, delicacy of make, tender colours, and such 
as insensibly melt into each other — are strictly applicable to female 
beauty.' Even in treating of the beauty of Nature, says Stewart, 
Burke's imagination always delights to repose on her softest and 
most feminine features ; or, to use his own language, on * such 



308 AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

qualities as induce in us a sense of tenderness and affection, or 
some other passion the most nearly resembling them.' 

Alison's work on Taste was published in 1790. The First 
Part of it is occupied with an analysis of what we feel when under 
the emotions of Beauty or Sublimity. He endeavours to show 
that this effect is something quite different from Sense, being in 
fact, not a Simple, but a Complex Emotion, involving (1) the pro- 
duction of some Simple Emotion, or the exercise of some moral 
affection, and (2) a peculiar exercise of the Imagination. 

The author occupies many pages in describing the nature of 
this peculiar exercise of Imagination, which must go along with 
the simple pleasure. When any object of sublimity or beauty is 
presented to the mind, every man is conscious, he says, of a train 
of thought being awakened analogous in character to the original 
object ; and unless such a train be awakened, there is no aesthetic 
feeling. He illustrates the position by supposing first the case 
where something occurs to prevent the outgoing of the imagi- 
nation, as when the mind is occupied with some incompatible 
feeling, for example, pain or grief, or a purely intellectual en- 
grossment of attention. So, there may be characters wholly 
unsuited to this play of imagination, as there are others in whose 
minds it luxuriates. Again, there are associations that increase 
the exercise of imagination, and also the emotion of beauty. 
Such are the local associations of each one's- life, and the historic 
associations whereby the interest of places is enhanced — Bunny- 
mede, Agincourt, to an Englishman; also the effect of poetry, 
music, and works of art in adding to the interest of natural 
objects and of historic events. The effect called Picturesqueness 
operates in the same direction, whether the occurrence of pic- 
turesque objects in a scene — an old tower in a deep wood — or the 
picturesque descriptions of poetry. 

It is necessary to enquire farther into the distinctive nature of 
those trains of Imagination ; or, wherein they differ from other 
trains. The author resolves the difference into these two circum- 
stances : 1st, the nature of the Ideas or Conceptions themselves, 
and 2ndly, the Law of their Succession. On the first head, he 
remarks, that, while the great mass of our ideas excite no emotion 
whatever, the ideas of Beauty excite some Affection or Emotion 
— Gladness, Tenderness, Pity, Melancholy, Admiration, Power, 
Majesty, Terror; whence they may be termed ideas of emotion. On 
the second head, — the Law of Succession, — the ideas of imagination 
have an emotional character allied to the original emotion ; the 
emotional keeping is preserved throughout. 

The author adds a series of illustrations of the influences that 
further, or that arrest, the development of Sensibility and Taste, 
all tending to establish his two positions above given. On these 
positions, it may be remarked, that they evade, rather than 
explain, whatever difficulty may be on the subject; and that 
their value consists in illustrating the really important point that 
Imagination involves, as a part of its nature, the predominance of 



THEOKIES OF BEAUTY — ALISON. 309 

some emotion. When he says, that unless the imagination be 
free to operate, no feeling of beauty will arise in the presence of 
a beautiful object, he means only that we cannot be awakened to 
beauty, if the mind is preoccupied by some incompatible state ; 
the possibility of imagination is the possibility of feeling. 

He also assumes, without sufficient grounds, that the state of 
reverie is necessary to the emotion of beauty ; that the mind 
cannot confine its thoughts to the original object, but must 
wander in quest of other objects capable of kindling the same 
emotion. Now, although this is a very natural and frequent 
effect of being once aroused to a strong emotion, there is no 
absolute necessity for it; nor would the emotion be excluded from 
the sesthetic class, although the thoughts were to be detained 
upon the beautiful object. 

Such being his general doctrine, Alison applies it to explain 
the Sublimity and Beauty of the Material World. He starts with 
affirming positively that matter in itself, or as perceived by the 
senses, is unfit to produce any kind of emotion ; the smell of a 
rose, the colour of scarlet, the taste of a pine-apple, are said to 
produce agreeable Sensations, but not agreeable Emotions. But 
the sensible qualities may form associations with emotions or affections, 
and become the signs for suggesting these to the mind. The author 
enumerates various classes of associations so formed. (1) The 
signs of Useful qualities, or the forms and colours of objects of 
utility, as a ship, suggest the pleasure of Utility. (2) The marks 
of Design, Wisdom, or Skill, suggest the emotions corresponding 
to those qualities. (3) Material appearances, — as the countenance, 
gesture, or voice of a human being, — suggest the human attributes, 
Power, Wisdom, Fortitude, Justice, Benevolence, &c, and the 
pleasurable emotion that their contemplation inspires. (4) There 
are appearances that suggest mental qualities by metaphorical 
or personifying resemblance ; whence we speak of the Strength 
of the Oak, the Delicacy of the Myrtle, the Boldness of a Eock, 
the Modesty of the Yiolet. So there is some analogy between an 
ascending path and Ambition ; a descending and Decay ; between 
sunshine and Joy, darkness and Sorrow, silence and Tranquillity, 
morning and Hope, soft colouring and Gentleness of Character, 
slenderness of form and Delicacy of Mind. 

He then discusses the Sublimity and Beauty of Sound. As 
regards simple sounds, he allows no intrinsically pleasing effect, 
and attributes all their influence to associations, of which he cites 
numerous examples. He considers, however, that the leading dis- 
tinctions of sound, — Loud and Low, Grave and Acute, Long and 
Short, Increasing and Diminishing, — have general associations, 
the result of long experience of the conjoined qualities: thus 
loud sound is connected with Power and Danger, and so on. 

Under Compound Sounds, he has to consider Music. He still 
resolves the pleasure of musical composition into associations. 
Each musical Key suggests a characteristic emotion, by imitating 
as nearly as possible the expression of that emotion. He allows 



310 AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

that music cannot very specifically set forth any one passion ; the 
assistance of Poetry is requisite to distinguish Ambition, Fortitude, 
Pity, &c. As to elaborate compositions and harmonies, their 
superiority over a simple air consists in suggesting the Skill, 
Invention, or Taste of the composer, and the performer. 

The Beauty of Colours is also exclusively referred to their 
associations with a number of pleasing qualities. For example, 
White, the colour of Day, expresses cheerfulness and gaiety. 
Blue, the colour of the Heavens in serene weather, expresses 
serenity of mind ; Green, the colour of the Earth in Spring, is 
associated with the delights of that season. These are general 
and prevailing associations. Others are more accidental, as 
Purple, the dress of kings, with royal authority; Red, in this 
country the uniform of the soldier, with military functions and 
prowess. 

The author gives a more detailed explanation of the Sublimity 
and Beauty of Forms. Denying, as before, all intrinsic pleasure 
in any one form, he quotes a series of examples of their derived 
effects. Thus, the forms of bodies dangerous or powerful, as the 
weapons and insignia of war, are sublime. The forms of Trees 
are sublime as expressive of strength; still more so the rocks 
that have stood the storms and convulsions of ages. The sublimest 
of mechanical arts is Architecture, from the strength and durability 
of its productions ; and the most sublime result of Architecture is 
the Gothic castle, which has resisted alike the desolations of time 
and the assaults of war. The sublime of Magnitude generally is 
referable to strength ; while magnitude in height expresses Ele- 
vation and Magnanimity; in deptk, Danger and Terror; in 
length, Yastness and Infinity; and in breadth, Stability. 

In the Beauty of Forms, account must be taken (1) of angular 
lines, and (2) of winding or curve lines. The first are chiefly con- 
nected with bodies possessing Hardness, Strength, or Durability; 
the second (seen in the infancy and youth, both of plants and 
of animals) are expressive of Infancy, Tenderness, and Delicacy ; 
and also the very important circumstance of Ease, as opposed to 
constraint, being the beauty of the bending river, of the vine 
wreathing itself about the elm, and so on. 

From Simple Forms, he proceeds to Complex, which involve 
new considerations. In the first place, complex arrangements 
must have some general character [a feeble and inadequate mode 
of stating the condition of Harmony], in which he quotes largely 
from landscape Gardening. He applies the same rule to Complex 
Colours, which are beautiful only by their Expression ; the beauty 
of Dress, for example, being altogether relative to the wearer and 
the circumstances. 

In the next place, Composite Forms afford wide scope for the 
exhibition of Design, Fitness, and Utility. The beauty of Design 
he expounds at great length, and with indiscriminate application 
to the Useful Arts and to the Fine Arts. He descants upon the 
opposing demands for Uniformity and for Variety, the one a sign 



THEOEIES OF BEAUTY — ALISON. 311 

of Unity of Design, the other a sign of Elegant, or embellished 
Design. Beautiful compositions must include both. By Fitness, 
is meant the adaptation of means to Ends, also a source of beauty. 
He explains Proportion purely by reference to Fitness, and dis- 
cusses the Orders of Architecture under this view. The beauty 
of architectural proportions is (1) the expression of Fitness of 
Support, (2) the expression of Fitness to the Character of the 
apartment, and (3) the Fitness for the particular purpose of the 
building. Utility also contributes to beauty, as in a clock or 
watch ; this is our satisfaction at the attainment of valuable ends. 
He then considers the Sublimity and Beauty of Motion, which 
he resolves into the expression of Power. Great power, able to 
overcome obstacles, is sublime ; gentle, moderate, diminutive 
power inspires Tenderness, or Affection. Eapid motion, as indi- 
cating great power, is sublime ; slow motion, by indicating gentle 
power, is beautiful. Motion in a Straight Line, if rapid, is sub- 
lime ; if slow, beautiful. Motion in an Angular Line, expresses 
obstruction and imperfect power, and, considered in itself, is un- 
pleasing, although in the case of Lightning, the impressiveness 
of the phenomenon redeems it. Motion in Curves is expressive 
of Ease, of Freedom, of Playfulness, and is beautiful. 

The Beauty of the Human Countenance and Form is discussed 
at length. As regards the Countenance, the first point is Colour 
or Complexion. On general grounds, whiteness expresses Purity, 
Fineness, Gaiety ; the dark complexion, Melancholy, Gloom, or 
Sadness. Clear and uniform colours suggest Perfection and Con- 
sistency ; mixed and mottled complexions, Confusion and Imper- 
perfection. A bright Eye is significant of Happiness ; a dim and 
turbid eye, of Melancholy. Colour has also an efficacy as suggest- 
ing Health or Disease ; and a farther efficacy in expressing Dis- 
positions of Mind ; dark complexions being connected with 
Strength ; fair complexions with Cheerfulness and Delicacy. The 
variable colours, or the changes of complexion, are still more 
decisively connected with states of mind ; the blush of Modesty, 
the glow of Indignation, and so on. That there is no intrinsic 
power in colour seems to be shown by our being at one time 
pleased, and another time displeased with the same colour, as with 
the blush of modesty and the blush of guilt. 

A like reasoning applied to the Forms of the Countenance, or 
the Features, points to the conclusion that their beauty depends 
on the expression of character and passion ; we have one set of 
forms for the beauty of infancy and youth, another set for mature 
age ; and so with the variable expression of states of feeling. 

In reference to the Human Form, he argues against the prin- 
ciple of Proportion, and rests the beauty first, upon its Fitness as 
a machine ; and secondly, on its Expression of mind and character. 
The account of Beauty of Attitude and of Gesture, on the same 
principles, follows and concludes the work. The closing summary 
is in these words : — ' The Beauty and Sublimity which are felt in 
the various appearances of matter, are finally to be ascribed to 



312 ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

their Expression of Mind ; or to their being, either directly or in- 
directly, the signs of those qualities of mind which are fitted, by 
the constitution of our nature, to affect us with pleasing or in- 
teresting emotions.' 

Jeffrey, in the article ' Beauty,' in the Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica, adopts substantially the theory of Alison. He states the 
theory thus : — ' Our sense of beauty depends entirely on our pre- 
vious experience of simpler pleasures or emotions, and consists in 
the suggestion of agreeable or interesting sensations with which we 
had formerly been made familiar by the direct and intelligible 
agency of our common sensibilities ; and that vast variety of 
objects, to which we give the common name of beautiful, become 
entitled to that appellation, merely because they all possess the 
power of recalling or reflecting those sensations of which they 
have been the accompaniments, or with which they have been 
associated in our imagination by any other more casual bond of 
connexion.' He takes exception, however, to Alison's statement 
that the existence of a connected train or series of ideas, is an 
essential part of the perception of beauty ; remarking that the 
effect of a beautiful object may be instantaneous and immediate, 
and that a train of ideas of emotion may accompany the percep- 
tion of ugliness. 

In answer to the question — What are the primary affections by 
whose suggestion we experience the feeling of beauty ? — Jeffrey 
answers, all pleasing sensations and emotions whatsoever, and 
many that are, in their first incidence, painful. Every feeling 
agreeable to experience, to recall, or to witness, may become the 
source of beauty in any external thing that reminds us of that 
feeling. 

It follows that we never can be interested in anything but the 
fortunes of sentient beings ; that every present emotion must refer 
back to some past feeling of some mind. We may be actuated in 
the first instance by a pure organic stimulus ; the pleasure at that 
stage is not beauty, it becomes so only by recollection, or mental 
reproduction. 

The author gives a variety of examples of his doctrine. 
Female beauty is explained by being the signs of two sets of 
qualities ; the first, youth and health : the second, innocence, 
gaiety, sensibility, intelligence, delicacy or vivacity. A common 
English landscape is beautiful through the picture of human hap- 
piness presented to the imagination by a variety of signs. A 
Highland scene of wild and rugged grandeur has for its leading 
impressions, romantic seclusion, and primeval simplicity: the 
sense of the Mighty Power that piled up the cliffs and rent the 
mountains ; the many incidents of the life of former inhabitants ; 
and the contrast of perishable humanity with enduring nature. 
The beauty of Spring is the renovation of life and joy to all ani- 
mated beings. 

After adducing, in support of the theory, examples of the 
arbitrary beauties of natural tastes and fashions, he follows Alison 



THEORIES OF BEAUTY — JEFFREY. 313 

in adverting to the influence of similarity or analogy in giving 
interest to objects ; which explains much of the interest of Poetry. 
He then notices the objection that, if beauty be only a reflexion 
of love, we should confound the two feelings under one name, 
and answers first, that beauty really does affect us in a manner 
not very different from love ; secondly, the fact of being reflected, 
and not primitive, gives a character to the feelings in question ; 
and thirdly, there is always present a real and direct perception, 
imparting a liveliness to the emotion of beauty. 

Jeffrey argues strongly against Payne Knight's doctrine of the 
intrinsic beauty of colours. Even as regards the harmony and 
composition of colours, so much insisted on by artists and con- 
noisseurs, he suspects no little pedantry and jargon; the laws of 
colouring will have their effect only with trained judges of the 
art, and through the force of associations. Apart from associa- 
tion, he will not admit that any distribution of tints or of light 
or shade bears a part in the effect of picture. He has the same 
utter scepticism as to the intrinsic pleasure of sounds, or the mere 
musical arrangement of sounds. 

As inferences from the theory, Jeffrey specifies the substantial 
identity of the Sublime, the Beautiful and the Picturesque ; and 
also the essentially relative nature of Taste. For a man himself, 
there is no taste that is either bad or false ; the only difference is 
between much and little. The following sentence is a clue to the 
author's own individuality : — [ Some who have cold affections, 
sluggish imaginations, and no habits of observation, can with 
difficulty discern beauty in -anything ; while others, who are full 
of kindness and sensibility, and who have been accustomed to 
attend to all the objects around them, feel it almost hi every- 
thing. ' 

Dugau) Stewaet has devoted to the discussion of Beauty a 
series of Essays, making a large part of a volume, entitled Philo- 
sophical Essays, published in 1810. He agrees with the greater 
part of Alison's views on the influence of association in deter- 
mining the beauty of Colour, Form, and Motion, but maintains, 
against Alison, a primitive organic pleasure of colour. As to the 
curve line, or line of beauty according to Hogarth, he admits only 
' that this line seems, frorn an examination of many of Nature's 
most pleasing productions, to be one of her most favourite forms.' 
He gives examples of Order, Fitness, Utility, Symmetry, &c.', 
constituting beauty. He discusses at length the Picturesque, in 
criticising the theory of Price. With reference to the view that 
would restrict beauty to mind, and make it exclusively a mental 
reflexion from primitive effects of matter, he repeats his claim for 
the intrinsic beauty of objects of sight: the visible object, if not 
the physical cause, is the occasion of the pleasure ; and it is on the 
eye alone that the organic impression is made. He strongly re- 
pudiates any idea or essence of Beauty, any one fact pervading all 
things called beautiful, as savouring of the exploded theory of 
general Ideas. 



314 ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

Stewart's theory of the Sublime principally takes account of 
the element of Height, the efficacy of which he traces to a con- 
tinued exercise of actual power to counteract gravity. To this he 
adds the associations of Height with the rising and setting of the 
heavenly bodies, and also with the position assigned by all nations 
to their Divinities. He supposes that the idea of the Terrible may 
add to the sublimity, and speaks of the ' silent and pleasing awe ' 
experienced in a Gothic cathedral. The sublimity of Horizontal 
Extent arises entirely from the association between a commanding 
prospect and an elevated position ; extent of view being, in fact, 
a measure of height. The sublime of Depth is increased by the 
awfulness of the situation. The celestial vault owes its sublimity 
to the idea of architectural support ('this majestical roof), 
enhanced by the amplitude of space and the sidereal contents. 
The Ocean combines unfathomable depth with sympathetic dread, 
and the power of its waves and waters; there being numerous 
superadded associations. 

Mr. Buskin, in his Modern Painters, vol. ii., has discussed the 
principles of Beauty. He puts forward as the leading attributes 
of what he calls Typical Beauty (opposed to Vital Beauty), 
Infinity, Unity, Eepose, Symmetry, Purity, Moderation. There 
are superadded, in Vital Beauty, all the considerations relative 
to function, or the adaptation to ends. The author raises Art to 
a kind of religion ; every one of these attributes is connected with 
the Deity : Infinity, the Type of Divine Incomprehensibility ; 
Unity, the Type of the Divine Comprehensiveness ; Eepose, the 
Type of Divine Permanence ; Symmetry, the Type of Divine Jus- 
tice ; Purity, the Type of Divine Energy ; Moderation, the Type 
of Government by Law. It is in detached and incidental observa- 
tions, rather than in the systematic exposition, that Mr. Buskin 
adverts to the ultimate analysis of Beauty. He defends the 
aesthetic character of the two senses — Sight and Hearing — on the 
grounds of their permanence and self-sufficiency ; and as regards 
the pleasures of Sight, he takes notice of their unselfishness, to 
which he adds purity and spirituality. He contests Alison's 
theory, without being aware that many of his own explanations 
coincide with that theory. His view of association is that it 
operates more in adding force to Conscience, than in the sense of 
beauty. He contends for the intrinsic and even exclusive beauty 
of curvature in Form ; and holds that the value of straight lines 
is to bring out the beauty of curves by contrast. The curve is a 
type of infinity. Something analogous belongs to the gradation 
of shades and colours, which gradation is their infinity. 

The general tendency of Mr. Buskin's speculations in Art is 
towards a severe asceticism, a kind of moral code, for which his 
only conceivable justification is the tendency of Art to cultivate 
pleasures free from the taint of rivalry and selfishness. To make 
this object perfect, no work of Art should ever inspire even ideal 
longings for sensual or other monopolist pleasures ; an elevation 
both impossible and futile. Where to draw the line between the 



CAUSES OF LAUGHTER. 315 

interesting and the elevated, in the above meaning, must be a 
matter of opinion. 

THE LUDICEOUS. 

1. The Ludicrous is connected with Laughter. 

The outburst, termed Laughter, has many causes. Not 
to dwell upon purely physical influences, — as cold, tickling, 
hysteria, — the exuberance of mere animal spirits chooses this 
among other violent manifestations, from which we may con- 
elude that it is an expression of agreeable feeling. Any great 
and sudden accession of pleasure, in the vehemence of the 
stimulation, chooses laughter as one outlet; the great in- 
tensity of the nervous wave is marked by respiratory con- 
vulsions, which are supposed (by Spencer) to check the 
ingress of oxygen, and thus moderate the excitement. The 
outburst of Liberty in a young fresh nature, after a time of 
restraint, manifests itself in wild uproarious mirth and glee. 
The emotion of Power, suddenly gratified, has a special ten- 
dency to induce laughter. 

2. The most commonly assigned cause of the Ludicrous 
is Incongruity ; but all incongruities are not ludicrous. 

Inequality of means to ends, discord, disproportion, false- 
hood, are incongruous, but not necessarily ludicrous. An 
idiot ruling a nation is highly incongruous, but not laughable. 
The incongruity that leads to laughter is a peculiar sort, 
marked by a quality that deserves to be accounted the generic 
fact, and not a mere qualification of another fact. 

3. The occasion of the Ludicrous is the Degradation of 
some person or interest possessing dignity, in circum- 
stances that excite no other strong emotion. 

When any one suddenly tumbles into the mud, the spec- 
tator is disposed to laugh, unless the misery of the situation 
causes pity instead. Should the victim, by pretentious attire, 
or pomposity of manner, or from any other reason, inspire 
contempt or dislike, the laughter is uncontrolled. Putting 
one into a fright, or into a rage (if not dangerous), giving 
annoyance by an ill smell, attaching filth in any way, are 
common modes of laughable degradation. An intoxicated man 
is ludicrous, if he does not excite pity, or disapprobation. 

In the Dunciad, a ludicrous effect is aimed at by de- 
scribing the flagellation of the criminals in Bridewell as 
happening after morning service at chapel. To most minds, 



316 .ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

the ludicrousness of the conjunction would be overborne by 
another sentiment. 

Amid the various theories of Laughter, this pervading fact is 
more or less recognized. According to Aristotle, Comedy is an 
illustration of worthless characters, not, indeed; in reference to 
every vice, but to what is mean ; the laughable has to do with 
what is deformed or mean ; it must be a deformity or meanness 
not painful or destructive (so as to produce pity, fear, anger, or 
other strong feelings). He would have been nearer the mark if 
he had expressed it as causing something to appear mean that was 
formerly dignified ; for to depict what is already under a settled 
estimate of meanness, has little power to raise a laugh : it can 
merely be an occasion of reflecting our own dignity by compari- 
son. Some of Quintilian's expressions are more happy. ' A say- 
ing that causes laughter is generally based on false reasoning 
(some play upon words) ; has always something low in it ; is often 
purposely sunk into buffoonery; is never honourable to the subject of 
it.' ' Eesemblances give great scope for jests, and, especially, re- 
semblance to something meaner or of less consideration.' Campbell 
{Philosophy of Rhetoric), in reply to Hobbes, has maintained that 
laughter is associated with the perception of oddity, and not 
necessarily with degradation or contempt. He produces instances 
of the laughable, and challenges any one to find anything con- 
temptuous in them. ' Many,' he says, ' have laughed at the 
queerness of the comparison in these lines, — 

" For rhyme the rudder is of verses, 
With which, like ships, they steer their courses." 

who never dream't that there was any person or party, practice 
or opinion, derided in them.' Now, on the contrary, there is 
an obvious degradation of the poetic art; instead of working 
under the mysterious and lofty inspiration of the Muse, the poet 
is made to compose by means of a vulgar mechanical process. 

In the theory of Hobbes, ' Laughter is a sudden glory arising 
from sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by com- 
parison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.' 
In other words, it is an expression of the pleasurable feeling of 
superior power. Now, there are many cases where this will 
afford a complete explanation, as in the laugh of victory, ridicule, 
derision, or contempt, against persons that we ourselves have 
humiliated. But we can also laugh sympathetically, or where 
the act of degrading redounds to the glory of some one else, as in 
the enjoyment of comic literature generally, where we have no 
part in causing the humiliation that we laugh at. Moreover, 
laughter can be excited against classes, parties, systems, opinions, 
institutions, and even inanimate things that by personification 
have contracted associations of dignity ; of which last, the couplet 
of Hudibras upon sunrise, is a sufficient example. And, farther, 
the definition of Hobbes is still more unsuitable to Humour, 
which is counted something genial and loving, and as far re- 



RELEASE FROM CONSTRAINT. 317 

moved as may be, from self-glorification and proud exultation at 
other men's discomfiture. Not, however, that there is not even 
in the most genial humour, an element of degradation, but that 
the indignity is disguised, and, as it were, oiled, by some kindly 
infusion, such as would not consist with the unmitigated glee of 
triumphant superiority. 

Kant makes the ridiculous to arise from the sudden col- 
lapse of a long- raised and highly- wrought expectation. He 
should have added, supposing the person not affected with 
painful disappointment, anger, fear, or some other intense 
emotion. 

4. The pleasure of degrading something dignified may 
be referred (1) to the sentiment of Power, direct or sym- 
pathetic, or (2) to the release from a state of Constraint. 

In the deepest analysis, the two facts are the same ; there 
is in both, a joyful elation of rebound or relief from a state of 
comparative depression or inferiority. In such cases as have 
been described, the more obvious reference is to the sentiment 
of Power or superiority. In another class of -cases, we may 
best describe the result as a release from Constraint. 

Under this last view, the Comic is a reaction from the 
Serious- The dignified, solemn, and stately attributes of 
things require a certain portion of rigid constraint ; and if we 
are suddenly relieved from this position, the rebound of 
hilarity ensues, as with children set free from school. The 
Serious in life is made up of labour, difficulty, hardship and 
all the necessities of our position, giving rise to the severe and 
constraining institutions of government, law, morality, educa- 
tion, religion. Whatever strikes awe or terror into men's 
minds is serious ; whatever prostrates, even for a moment, 
an awe-striking personage, is a delightful relief. A degrading 
conjunction may have the effect, as when Lucian vulgarizes 
the gods by mean employment. But then we must have 
ceased to entertain a genuine homage for the dignities thus 
prostrated ; or we must be willing to forego for a moment 
our sentiment of regard. The Comic is fed by false or faded 
dignities ; by affectation and hypocrisy ; by unmeaning and 
hollow pomp. Carlyle's Teufelsdrockh was convulsed with 
laughter once in his life, and the occasion was Richter's sug- 
gesting a cast-iron king. 

The Moral Sense is discussed under Ethics, Part I. 
Chap. III. 



BOOK IV. 

THE WILL. 



CHAPTEE L 
PEIMITIYE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. 

1. The Primitive Elements of the Will have been 
stated to be (1) the Spontaneity of Movement, and (2) 
the Link between Action and Feeling, grounded in Self- 
conservation. In the maturing or growth of the Will, 
there is an extensive series of Acquisitions, under the 
law of Eetentiveness or Contiguity. 

THE SPONTANEITY OF MOVEMENT. 

2. Spontaneity expresses the fact that the active organs 
may pass into movement, apart from the stimulus of Sen- 
sation. 

This doctrine has been already explained, and supported 
by a series of proofs (p. 14). The impulse is not stimulation, 
but a certain condition of the nervous centres and the muscles, 
connected with natural vigour, nourishment, and rest. The 
exuberant movements of young and active animals are refer- 
able to natural spontaneity, rather than to the excitement of 
sensation. The movements of delirium and disease have no 
dependence whatever on sensation, but on the morbid con- 
gestion of the nerve centres. In the example of parturition, 
the uterus is prepared by the growth of muscular fibres, 
which, on reaching their maturity, contract of their own 
accord, and expel the foetus ; there is no special stimulation 



ISOLATION OF SPONTANEOUS DISCHARGES. 319 

at the moment of birth, but merely the ripening of the 
active mechanism. 

3. The muscles are distinguished into local groups, or 
Eegions. 

It is convenient to study the operation of spontaneity in 
the separate groups of muscles. 

The Locomotive Apparatus is in every animal the largest 
muscular department. In vertebrate animals, this involves 
the limbs, with their numerous muscles, and the trunk of the 
body, which chimes in with the movements of the extremities. 
When the central vigour of the system is copious, it overflows 
in movements of locomotion ; the infant can throw out its 
legs and arms, and swing the trunk and head. 

An important group is connected with the movements of 
the Mouth and Jaw. The Tongue is distinguished for 
flexibility and for independence, and we may consider its 
muscles as forming a group. The muscles of the Larynx, or 
voice, are also grouped. Vocal spontaneity is a well-marked 
fact ; there being numerous occasions when vocal outbursts 
have no other cause but the exuberant vigour. Other groups 
are found in the Abdomen and Perinseum. 

4. It is necessary for the commencement of voluntary 
power, that the organs to be commanded separately, should 
be capable of Isolation from the outset. 

The grouping of the muscles is shown by the parts being 
moved in company, as when the fingers are simultaneously 
closed or extended. It is necessary, however, that this group- 
ing should not be rigid or absolute, otherwise no separate 
movement could ever be acquired. Through distinctness of 
nervous connexions, there must be a possibility of spontaneous 
impulses affecting one without the others. A remarkable 
instance of primitive isolation, such as to prepare the way for 
voluntary command, is seen of the forefinger ; the child, from 
the first, moves it apart, while the three others go together. 
The isolation of the thumb is less than of the forefinger, and 
greater than of the other fingers. There is very little isolation 
of the toes ; yet their grouping is not inseparable, as we may 
see from the instances of acquired power to write and perform 
other operations by the feet. The limbs are grouped for the 
locomotive rhythm ; but they are also spontaneously moved in 
separation. The upper limbs, or arms, in man, have a certain 
tendency to common action, together with tendencies to indi- 



320 PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. 

vidual action. The two sides of the face are moved together 
in a very powerful conjunction, yet not without occasional 
spontaneous separation, so as to give a starting point for volun- 
tary separation. The chief example of indissoluble union is 
the two eyes. Also, there is a tendency in the different parts 
of the face to go together in characteristic expressions — eye- 
brows, mouth, nose — but not without that occasional isolation 
through which we can acquire a separate control of each part. 

That spontaneous impulses should be directed, in occasional 
isolation, upon all these various organs, separately controlled 
in the maturity of the will, is thus the first step in our volun- 
tary education. The spontaneity of the moving system, at the 
outset, is various and apparently capricious ; at one time, it 
overtakes a large number of muscles, at other times, a smaller 
number ; it does not always unite in the same combinations : 
and out of this variety, we can snatch the beginnings of 
isolated control. 

In parts where there are no spontaneous movements at 
the beginning, there can never arise voluntary movements. 
Such is the case with the two ears, which are rarely com- 
manded by human beings. In them the failure to acquire 
voluntary control must be ascribed to the immobility of the 
parts, and not merely to the absence of isolating spontaneity, 

5. It is requisite to show in what way the spontaneous 
discharges may vary in degree, through the wide compass 
attained by our voluntary energies. 

Our command of the voluntary organs involves a great 
range of gradation, rising to a violent sudden blow, almost 
like an explosion. In order to account for these violent 
exertions, by the hypothesis of spontaneity converted into 
will, we have to show that there may be corresponding 
energy in the spontaneous discharges. 

(1) The Natural vigour of the system, nurtured and pent 
up, leads to outbursts of very considerable energy. We see 
this in the daily experience of robust children and youth. The 
explosiveness of the boy or girl relieved from constraint is of 
the kind suited to any violent effort. To leap ditches, to 
throw down barriers, and displace heavy bodies, are what the 
system, in its mere spontaneity, is adequate to achieve. 

(2) The vigour may be greatly increased by Excitement ; 
that is, an unusual flow of blood to the active organs, through 
what are termed Stimulants. We usually give this name to 
drugs, such as alcohol, but the most usual and the readiest 



SPONTANEOUS DISCHARGES VAKY IN DEGKEE. 321 

stimulation is mere exercise, and especially rapid movements 
continued for a little time. The exertion of any part deter- 
mines an increased flow of blood to that part, at the expense 
of other organs ; a quick run makes the circulation course 
to the muscles, away from the stomach, brain, and other parts. 
When the accumulation of blood is at its maximum, there is 
a corresponding energy of the movements. 

(3) Stimulation may arise through mental causes, as 
pleasure and pain : it being understood that these are not 
abstractions, but embodiments. According to the law of 
Self- conservation, an access of pleasure is an access of vital 
power, shown in some of the forms of increased activity, 
muscular movement being one of the most usual. An acute 
and sudden thrill of pleasure, — as in the overthrow of a rival, 
the conquering of a difficulty, the view of an imposing spec- 
tacle, — is physically accompanied with elation of body; the 
robust frame dances with joy. The profuse expenditure at 
that moment is equal to the requirements of a great occasion, 
He that has overcome one barrier, in the flush of success, is 
stronger for the next. 

The pleasure of exercise, to a fresh and vigorous system, 
supplies a new stimulus. 

(4) Although, by the law of Conservation, pain is accom- 
panied by a lowering of energy, yet in the exceptional form 
of the acute and pungent smart, not crushing or severe, a 
painful application may increase the active energies for a 
time. The nervous currents awakened by a pungent stimulus, 
as the smart of a whip, find no adequate vent except in mus- 
cular activity, and to that they tend. 

It is well known that Opposition may act as an efficacious 
stimulant. An invincible resistance indeed both stops pro- 
gress, and suspends the motive to proceed ; but a small con- 
querable opposition provokes a reaction, with augmentation of 
power. The effect is a complex one. Part of it is due to the 
stimulus of the shock of obstruction, which operates like an 
acute smart ; and part to the flush consequent on a successful 
struggle. The feelings connected with our desires, and the 
emotions of pride, humiliation, and anger, complete the in- 
fluence of the situation. 

These various circumstances are adduced as a sufficient 
explanation of the flexibility and compass of our spontaneity. 
The rise of one or other of these various stimulations pro- 
duces, in the first instance, an outburst of active energy ; and 
among the associations constituting the mature will, there are 
21 



o 



22 PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. 



formed links of connexion between strong exertions and the 
occasions for them. The young horse needs the spur and 
whip to prepare him for a leap ; after a time, the sight of the 
barrier or the ditch is enough to evoke the additional impetus. 
One of the aptitudes most signally absent in infancy is the 
power of increasing the efforts so as to overcome a difficulty. 

It should be remarked that although, in our mature voli- 
tion, we can, on demand, originate a very rapid movement, as 
in preventing a breakage, we cannot suddenly exert a very 
great momentum, as in striking a heavy blow. A little time 
must be allowed to work up the system to a higher pitch of 
activity. Mere association cannot command, in a moment, a 
massive expenditure ; we must first resort to the stimulants 
of active power, and chiefly to the exciting agency of a con- 
tinuing effort, as in making a run before jumping a high bar. 
Combatants strike their heaviest blows after the fight has 
lasted for some time. 

LINK OF FEELING AND ACTION. 

6. As Spontaneity is not necessarily preceded by 
Feeling, there must be some medium for uniting it with 
our feelings. The requisite Link is believed to be given 
under the Law of Self- conservation. 

The doctrine connecting pleasure with increased, and pain 
with diminished, vitality, gives a starting point for the union 
of action and feeling. A state of pleasure, by its connexion 
with increased vitality in general, involves increased muscular 
activity in particular. A shock of pain in lowering the col- 
lective forces of the system, saps the individual force of mus- 
cular movement. 

7. From the one mental root, named Self-conservation, 
there grow two branches, which diverge widely, and yet 
occasionally come together. The first branch includes the 
proper manifestations or Expression of Emotion. 

The Emotional manifestations have been already described 
as consisting in part of movements of all degrees of force or 
intensity ; thus affording at least one connexion between feel- 
ing and action. Under pleasure, we put forth a variety of 
gesticulations ; and under pain, we collapse into a more or 
less passive condition (the exceptional operation of acute pain 
being left out of account). But these effects of movement, 
although distinct from spontaneity, are not of a kindred with 



MOVEMENTS ARISING IN EMOTION. 323 

volition. The movements of expression under pleasure 
appear to be selected according to a law pointed out by Mr. 
Herbert Spencer, namely, the natural priority of muscles small 
in calibre and often exercised, as in the expression of the face, 
the breathing, the voice, &c. ; whereas the movements selected 
in volition are such as promote pleasure or abate pain. 

It is a proper question to consider whether these emotional 
movements are not of themselves sufficient to account for the 
beginning of volition, without our having recourse to Spontaneity, 
or action unpreceded by any feeling. The answer is, first, that 
spontaneous movements being established as a fact, are already in 
the field for the purpose. Secondly, in them, and not in the 
emotional movements, do we most readily obtain the isolated 
promptings that are desiderated in the growth of the will. The 
emotional wave almost invariably affects a whole group of move- 
ments. Still, it is possible that these movements of emotion may 
occasionally come into the service. 

8. The second branch or outgoing of Self-conservation 
is more directly suited for the growth of Volition. Move- 
ments being supposed already begun by Spontaneity (or 
in other ways), and to concur with pleasure ; the effect of 
the pleasure, on its physical side, is to raise the whole 
vital energy, these movements included. 

It is necessary to show that this (with the obverse) is a 
law of the constitution, operating all through life, as well as 
at the commencement of the education of the Will. 

It is known that any tasted delight urges us, by an imme- 
diate stimulus, to contiDue the movements that have procured 
it. Moving from the cold towards an agreeable warmth, our 
pace is quickened as of its own accord. We do not deliberate 
and formally resolve to go on ; we are at once laid hold of by 
what seems a primordial link of our mental system, and move 
to the increasing pleasure. The act of eating is another 
example. The relish of the food, by an immediate response, 
adds energy to mastication. Animals and children, who have 
departed least from the primary cast of nature, conspicuously 
exhibit the augmented activity following on a tasted pleasure. 

An apparent exception to the law occurs in the sedative 
effect of some pleasures, chiefly such as are massive rather 
than acute. A voluminous and agreeable warmth soothes 
down an activity already begun, and inclines as to repose and 
to sleep. But in such cases, the law is disguised merely, and 
not suspended. The warmth really promotes the activity 
suited to its own fruition, as soon as that activity is singled 



324 PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. 

out and connected with the pleasure ; which activity consists 
in maintaining a rigid and quiescent attitude. The occupant 
of a position of comfortable snugness may seem to be quies- 
cent and passive ; let any one, however, attempt to dispossess 
him, and he will put forth energy in resistance. Still, the 
fact must be admitted that the voluminous pleasures are 
quieting and serene ; they do not provoke unbounded Desire 
and pursuit, like the more acute enjoyments, but rather lull 
to indolence. And the explanation appears to be, that the 
physical state corresponding to them, is inimical to vehement, 
intense, or concentrated activity. 

Another exception to the rousing efficacy of pleasure is 
the exhaustion of the strength. All voluntary pursuit sup- 
poses a certain freshness of the active organs, as a concurring 
requisite. In the extremity of fatigue, the most acute plea- 
sure will fail as a motive. 

The obverse position is equally well supported by our ex- 
perience. Allowing for the exception of the acute smart, the 
ordinary effect, or collateral consequence of pain, is cessation 
of energy. If any present movement is bringing us pain, 
there is a self-acting remission or suspension of the damaging 
career. The mastication is arrested, in the full sway of its 
power, by a bitter morsel turning up. The most effectual 
cure of over- action is the inflicting of pain. 

Hence, whenever the cessation of a movement at work is 
the remedy for pain, the evil cures itself by the general ten- 
dency of self-conservation. The point is to explain how pain, 
in opposition to its nature, initiates and maintains a strenuous 
activity for procuring its abolition. In this case, the operat- 
ing element may be shown to be, not the pain, but the relief 
from pain. When in a state of suffering, there occurs a 
moment of remission, that remission has all the elating and 
quickening effect of pleasure ; as regards the agency of the 
will, pleasure and the remission of pain are the same thing. 
Relief in fact or in prospect, is the real stimulant to labour for 
vanquishing pain and misery. 

It is an undoubted fact, that in a depressed tone of mind, 
with no hope or prospect of relief, we are indisposed to active 
measures of any sort. This represents the proper tendency of 
pain. The activity begins with some conscious amelioration, 
and is maintained and increased, as that amelioration in- 
creases. 



PROCESS OF VOLUNTARY ACQUIREMENT. 325 

CHAPTEE II. 
GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 

1. The elements of voluntary power being assumed as 
(1) Spontaneity and (2) Self-conservation, we have to 
exemplify the connexion of these into the matured will, 
by a process of education. 

The distinctive aptitude of the mature will is to select at 
once the movements necessary to attain a pleasure or relieve 
a pain, as when we raise to the nostrils a sweet violet, or 
move away from something malodorous. There is no such 
power possessed by us at birth. 

2. The process of acquirement may be described 
generally as follows : — At the outset, there happens a 
coincidence, purely accidental, between a pleasure and a 
movement (of Spontaneity) that maintains and increases 
it ; or between a pain and a movement that alleviates or 
removes it ; by the link of Self-conservation, the movement 
bringing pleasure, or removing pain, is sustained and 
augmented. Should this happen repeatedly, an adhesive 
growth takes place, through which the feeling can after- 
wards command the movement. 

To exemplify this position, we will now review, in order, 
the primitive feelings, and the volitions grafted upon them. 

Commencing with the Muscular Feelings, we may remark 
upon the pleasures of Exercise. Spontaneous movements 
occurring in a fresh and vigorous system give pleasure ; and 
with the pleasure there is an increased vitality extending to 
the movements, which are thereby sustained and increased ; 
the pleasure as it were feeding itself. Out of the primitive 
force of self-conservation, we have the very effect that charac- 
terizes the will, namely, movement or action for the attain- 
ment of pleasure. 

The pains of Fatigue give the obverse instance. The 
immediate effect of pain being abated energy, the movements 
will suffer their share of the abatement and come to a stand ; 
a remedy for the evil as effectual as any resolution of the 
mature will. 



326 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 

These instances do not indicate any progress in our volun- 
tary education. Let us next take the pains of Muscular Re- 
straint, or of Spontaneity held in by obstacles, as when an 
animal is hedged into a narrow chamber. Various writhings 
are the natural consequence of the confined energies ; at last 
some one movement takes the animal to an opening, and it 
bolts out with explosive vehemence. When this experience 
is repeated several times, an association will be formed be- 
tween the state of constraint and the definite movements that 
lead to a release ; so that the proper course shall be taken at 
once, and without the writhings and uncertainties attending 
the first attempts. As soon as this association is complete, 
we have a step in the career of voluntary acquirement. 

Proceeding next to the Sensations proper, we begin with 
Organic Life. Among organic acute pains generally, we may 
single out the instructive case of a painful contact, as with a 
hot or a sharp instrument. The remedy is to retract the 
member ; and people are apt to suppose, erroneously, that we 
do this by instinct. Now, it is true that a painful pinch will 
induce, by a reflex process, a convulsive movement of the 
part ; while, as a part of the emotional wave, there will be 
a stir over the whole body. But there is no certainty that 
the reflex movement would be the remedial one ; it might be 
the very opposite. Supposing the limb contracted, the reflex 
stimulus would probably throw it out ; and if the sharp 
point lay in the way, there might be a much worse injury. 
The process of education would be this. Some one move- 
ment would be found to concur with diminished pain ; that 
movement would be sustained by the general elation of relief; 
other movements increasing the pain would be sapped and 
arrested. A single experience of this kind would go for little ; 
a few repetitions of the suitable coincidence would initiate a 
contiguous association, gradually ripening into a full coher- 
ence ; and the one single movement of retraction would be 
chosen on the instant the pain was felt. That may appear an 
uncertain and bungling way of attaining the power of ridding 
ourselves of a hot cinder ; and the more likely course would 
seem to be the possession of an instinct under the guise of a 
reflex action. But if we have an instinct for one class of 
pains, why have we not the same for others ? For example, 
the pain of cramp in the leg, suggests tons no remedy. Only 
after many fruitless movements, does there occur the one that 
alleviates the suffering. The fair interpretation is that we 
have too little experience of this pain to acquire the proper 



VOLITIONAL GROWTHS IN THE SENSATIONS. 327 

mode of dealing with it ; while the painful contacts with the 
skin are so numerous from the beginning of life, that our 
education is forced on and is early completed. 

The Sensations of the Lungs may be referred to. Re- 
spiration is a reflex act, under voluntary control. The pain- 
ful sensation of most frequent occurrence is that arising from 
deficient or impure air. The primitive effect of pain is the op- 
posite of the remedy ; for, instead of collapsing into inactivity, 
the lungs must be aided by increased breathing energy. How 
is this attained in the first instance ? The only assignable 
means is some accidental exertion of the respiratory muscles 
followed by relief, and maintained by the new power accruing 
to the general system. The infant is in all likelihood unequal 
to the effort of forced breathing. This is perhaps one of the 
deficiencies of the uneducated will of childhood, rendering 
life more precarious at its early stages. 

The augmented energy from pure air, suddenly encoun- 
tered, would directly lead to an augmented respiration. The 
voluntary acquisition of the command of the lungs would, in this 
case, be a more apparent offshoot from the primary instinct. 

Every sentient creature contracts many volitional habits 
in connexion with Warmth and dullness. Animals soon 
learn to connect the crouching attitude with increased 
warmth. Other devices are fallen upon, as lying close to- 
gether, and creeping into holes and shelters. I cannot say 
how far even the intelligent quadrupeds associate relief from 
chillness with a quick run. The lesson is one very much 
opposed to the primary effect of the sensation, which, in its 
character of massive pain, damps and depresses the energies. 

The sensations of the Alimentary Canal are rich in volun- 
tary associations. Sucking is said to be purely reflex in the 
new-born infant ; swallowing is performed by involuntary 
muscles, and is always reflex. The child put to the nipple 
commences to suck by a reflex stimulus of voluntary muscles ; 
the act being one of considerable complication, involving a co- 
operation of the mouth (which has to close round the nipple), 
the tongue (which applies itself to the opening of the nipple, 
making an air-tight contact), and the chest (which performs 
an increased inspiration, determining the flow of the milk 
when the tongue is pulled away). Being a conscious effect, 
operated by muscles all voluntary, it comes immediately under 
the fundamental law we are considering ; the stimulus arising 
from the nourishment heightens the activity, until the point 
of satiety is reached, when a new and depressing sensibility 



328 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 

comes into play, and induces cessation. Two powers, how- 
ever, are at work ; the nourishment received permanently 
increases the active vigour ; the sensation of satiety has to 
counterwork this, by the temporary depression due to stom- 
achic fulness. Probably at first infants glut the stomach too 
much before the depression arrests their sucking activity, in 
the face of the general stimulation brought about by the 
nourishment ; very frequently they are withdrawn from the 
breast before ceasing of themselves. So far we have a reflex 
act controlled by the power of self-conservation ; the only 
supposable education is the giving over at the extreme point 
of satiety. But in the next stage, there is room for volun- 
tary acquirements of a high order. The applying the mouth 
to the breast under the sensation of hunger is a somewhat 
complex ai'rangement ; it involves an association with the 
sight of the breast and the nipple, as well as with movements 
for approaching it. In fact, we have here a branch of our 
education in perceiving distance, or in connecting visible 
magnitudes with approaching and receding movements ; an 
education that doubtless commences in the most interesting 
cases, and extends itself gradually over the whole sphere of 
action. 

In Mastication, the progress of voluntary power may be 
stated to advantage. The powerful sensations of relish and 
taste, concurring with the spontaneity of the tongue (pro- 
bably the most moveable and independent member of the 
whole system), and prompting a continuing movement, would 
be the beginning of a connexion, soon ripened, between the 
contact of a morsel of food and the definite acts of pressing it 
to the palate, and moving it about. The infant is unable to 
masticate : a morsel put into its mouth at first usually 
tumbles out. But if there occur spontaneous movements of 
the tongue, mouth, or jaw, giving birth to a strong relish, 
these movements are sustained, and begin to be associated 
with the sensations ; so that after a time there grows up a 
firm connexion. The favouring circumstances are these : — 
the sensations are powerful ; and the movements are remark- 
able for various and isolated spontaneity : the tongue and 
the mouth are the organs of all others prone to detached and 
isolated exertions. 

The operation of a sour or bitter taste presents the case from 
the other side. The primary effect is to suspend the action 
of the organs ; the mere infant can do no more. The spitting 
out of a nauseous morsel is a complex and a later acquisition. 



VOLITIONAL URGENCY OF SOFT TOUCH. 329 

The voluntary command of the lower extremity of the 
alimentary canal is wanting in infancy, and must be preceded 
by an artificial sensibility in favour of the retention of the 
excreta, 

The pleasurable and painful sensations of Smell come into 
relationship with the inhalation and exhalation of air by the 
nostrils. The initiatory coincidence is not with the action of 
the lungs alone, but with the closure of the mouth also. Such 
coincidences are necessarily rare, and all acquirements that 
pre-suppose them are tardy. The act of sniffing is probably 
not attained before the third or fourth year, and often then 
by the help of instruction. It would be interesting to ascer- 
tain the period of this acquirement in the dog. 

The sensations of Touch serving as antecedents in volition 
are numerous and important. The greater number, however, 
are of the class of intermediate sensibilities, as in the in- 
dustrial arts ; smoothing a surface, for example. The two 
great ultimate sensibilities of Touch, are the pleasure of the 
soft and warm contact, and the pain of pungent irritation of 
the skin. Both these are operative as volitional guides and 
stimuli, and, in both, connexions with definite movements, un- 
formed at first, arise in the course of our voluntary education. 

In the human infant, and in the infancy of the lower 
animals, the feeling of the warm contact with the mother is 
unquestionably a great power • the transition from the ab- 
sence to the presence of the state is second only to the 
stimulus of nourishment; the rise of vital activity corre- 
sponding to it is, in all likelihood, very great. Whatever 
movements tend to bring on or heighten this state, may 
expect to be encouraged by the consequent elation of tone. 
Now, these movements are part of the locomotive group, 
which spontaneity brings into frequent play : and coincidences 
will readily arise between them and the attained delight of 
contact; the young quadruped succeeds by locomotion, the 
infant by thrusting out its limbs at first, and afterwards by 
more difficult movements, as turning in bed. If there were 
any one definite movement that on all occasions determined 
the transition from the cold naked state to the warm touch, 
a very few spontaneous concurrences with that movement 
would cement an effectual connexion. There is, however, 
scarcely any movement of this kind, suitable to all positions. 
One or two modes of attaining warmth are tolerably uniform, 
and therefore soon acquired ; as bringing the limbs close to 
the body. A somewhat complicated adjustment is needed in 



330 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 

most circumstances, involving the external perception of the 
eye — namely, moving up to the warm body of the mother : 
the young quadruped learns the lesson in a short time; 
the bird is even more precocious ; while the human infant 
is very backward, and occupies weeks or months in the 
acquisition. 

The pungent and painful sensations of Touch include the 
case already touched on, the retraction of any part from the 
shock of pain. This remedy being a simple and nearly 
uniform action, of a kind ready to occur in the course of 
spontaneity, we may expect to find it associated with the 
painful feeling at a comparatively early date. So early do 
we find it, that we are apt to regard it as an instinct. The 
same class of sensations includes the discipline of the whip. 
As an acutely painful feeling, the smart of the whip has two 
conflicting effects ; it irritates the nerves, causing spasmodic 
movements, and it depresses vital power on the whole. If the 
stimulation of the smart predominates in a vigorous animal, 
the effect of the whip would be to increase activity in general; 
hence if the animal is running, its speed is quickened. If the 
crushing effect of the pain predominates, the existing move- 
ments are arrested. Such are the primitive tendencies of an 
acute smart ; and even in the educated animal, the application 
of the whip is best understood if in harmony with these. To 
quicken a laggard, the acute prick, not severe, is the most 
directly efficacious course ; to quiet down a too active or 
prancing steed, a shock amounting to depression of power is 
more useful ; the curb has this kind of efficacy. To make 
the animal fall into a particular pace, the whip is used with 
the effect of stimulating movements, in the hope that a varia- 
tion may occur, and not merely an increase of degree : if the 
desired movement arise, the torment ceases ; the animal 
being supposed to connect mentally the movement with the 
cessation. A certain age must be attained before a horse 
will answer to discipline by changing its movements under 
the whip, and abiding by the one that brings immunity. It 
must have passed several stages beyond the instinctive situa- 
tion to arrive at this point. An interval has elapsed, during 
which the animal has learnt consciously to seek an escape 
from pain ; in point of fact to generalize its experiences of 
particular pains and particular movements of relief, and to 
connect any pain with movements and the hope of relief. A 
certain progress, both physical and intellectual, is requisite to 
this consummation. 



FOLLOWING A LIGHT. 331 

The pleasures and pains of Sound have little peculiarity. 
If a pleasant sound is heard, some movements will be found 
favourable to the effect, others adverse ; the first are likely to 
be sustained, the others arrested. An animal, with the power 
of locomotion, runs away from a painful sound ; the retreat 
being guided by the relief from the pain. A child learns to 
become still under a pleasant sound ; there is a felt increase 
in the pleasure from the fixed attitude, and a felt diminution 
from restlessness. 

In Sight, we have a remarkable example of sensations 
uniformly influenced by movements. The pleasure of light 
is very strong ; at all events, the attraction of the eye for a 
light is great. Indeed, this is a case where the stimulus given 
to the active members appears to exceed the pleasure of the 
sensation ; the eye is apt to remain fixed on a light even when 
the feeling has passed into pain, being a kind of aberration 
from the proper course of the will. Now, when the infant, 
gazing on a flame, is deprived of the sensation, by the motion 
of the light to one side, being at first unable to follow, for 
want of an established connection between the departing sen- 
sation and the requisite turn of the head, it must wait on ran- 
dom spontaneity for a lucky hit. Should a chance movement 
of the head tend to recover the flame, that movement will be 
sustained by the power of the stimulation ; movements that 
lose the light would not be sustained, but rather arrested. 
And, inasmuch as the same movement always suits the same 
case — the taking of the light to one side, being a definite 
optical effect, and the motion of the head for regaining it 
being always uniform — the ground is clear for an early and 
rapid association between the two facts, the optical experience 
and the muscular movement. The situation is a very general 
one, applying to every kind of interesting spectacle, and in- 
volving a comprehensive volitional aptitude, the command of 
the visual organs at the instigation of visual pleasures, I 
have supposed the rotation of the head to be the first attained 
means of recovering objects shifted away from direct vision ; 
but the movements of the eyes themselves will sooner or later 
come into play. It is evident enough, however, from the 
observation of children, that the power of recovering a visible 
thing is not arrived at during the first months. 

This example is instructive in various ways. The con- 
nexion of a pleasurable stimulus with heightened power has 
been hitherto assumed as not restricted to muscular move- 
ment; but as comprising, in undefined proportions, both 



332 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 

muscular power and the organic functions. The acute smart, 
in its first or enlivening stage, may be affirmed with certainty 
to increase muscular energy, and to diminish the healthy vital 
functions. Perhaps the pungent stimulus of light is mainly 
expended on muscular augmentation ; which alone is of service 
in the forming of the will. 

Connected with sight is another case of great interest, the 
adjustment of the eye to changes of distance. The guiding 
sensation in this case is the distinctness of the image ; the 
infant must be aware of the difference between confused and 
clear vision, and must derive pleasure in passing from the one 
to the other. Under any theory of vision, Berkeleian or other, 
some time must elapse ere this difference be felt ; everything 
at the outset being confused. As soon as the sense of a clear 
image is attained, the child may enter on the course of con- 
necting the spontaneity of the adjusting muscles with the 
agreeable experience ; as in other cases, a confirming associa- 
tion may be expected to follow soon, the movements con- 
cerned being few and uniform. 

The foregoing review of the Sensations comprises several 
of the Appetites — Exercise, Repose, and Hunger. The feelings 
of approaching Sleep are very powerful, but the state is one 
that provides for itself, by pure physical sequence, without 
special education. The resistance offered when one is pre- 
vented from going to sleep, or is reluctantly awakened, is not 
a primitive manifestation ; the child only manifests discomfort 
by the appropriate emotional expressions. 

3. The second step in the growth of the Will is -the 
uniting of movements with intermediate Ends. 

This supposes that a sensation, in itself indifferent, can 
awaken interest, by being the constant antecedent of some 
pleasure. Thus the sight of the mother's breast is indifferent 
as mere visual sensation ; but very soon allies itself in the 
infant mind with the gratification of being fed. This is a case 
of the contiguous transfer of a feeling, and is exemplified in 
all our powerful sensations and feelings. The lower animals 
are excited to their utmost activity by the sight of their food 
or their prey; they are sufficiently intellectual to have a 
recollection of their own feelings, and to have that awakened 
by some associated object. Granting the possession of these 
transferred sensibilities, which make the acquirement of what 
is only a means, as exciting to the activities as the final end, 
the process of connecting these with the movements for attain- 



INTERMEDIATE ENDS, 333 

ing them is precisely the same as before. Thus the act of 
lifting a morsel to the mouth is urged in obedience to an inter- 
mediate end, and is urged with a degree of energy propor- 
tioned to the acquired force of that end. The infant is, after 
a time, excited to warm manifestations by the mere approach 
of a spoonful to its mouth. There is an ideal fruition in the 
very sight of the spoon coming nearer, with a corresponding 
elation of tone and energy ; and when the young probationer 
is attempting the act for itself, there is a support given to 
successful movements, and a tendency to sink under obvious 
failure. The carrying of a morsel to the mouth is one of those 
definite and uniform movements so favourable to the process 
of volitional growth. It is, nevertheless, comparatively late, 
owing no doubt to the length of time occupied in the pre- 
paratory associations. 

4. Movements that have become allied with definite 
sensations, are thereby brought out, and made ready for 
new alliances. 

Spontaneity is supposed to be the earliest mode of bring- 
ing forward movements to be connected with feelings ; but 
when a number of connexions have been once formed, the 
connected movements are of more frequent occurrence, and 
are discovered to have new influences over the feelings. 
Locomotion, at first spontaneous, is rapidly allied with the 
animal's wants, and, being called out on the corresponding 
occasions, may coincide with new gratifications. Connected, 
in the early stages, with the search for food, it may be passed 
on to the alliance with shelter, with companionship, with 
safety, and other agreeables. Introductions are constantly 
made to new connexions, thus overcoming the initial difficulty 
of obtaining the necessary coincidences. 

5. Volition is enlarged, and made general, by various 
acquirements ; and first, the Word of Command. 

Instead of proceeding by detailed or piece-meal associa- 
tions with ends, or with pleasures and pains, the individual 
takes a higher step by forming connexions between all possible 
modes of movement, and a certain series of marks or indica- 
tions, through which the entire activity of the system may be 
amenable to control. 

The first of these methods is the Word of Command. In 
the discipline and training, both of animals and of human 
beings, names are applied to the different actions, and, even- 



334 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 

tually, become the medium of evoking them. The horse is 
made to hear the word for halting, and at the same time is 
drawn in with the bridle ; in no very great number of repe- 
titions, the word alone suffices to cause the act. So in infants. 
By uttering names in connexion with their various move- 
ments, a means is given of evoking these movements at plea- 
sure. The child is told to open its mouth ; at first it does 
not know what is wished ; some other means must be used 
for bringing on the movement, which movement is then 
coupled in the mind with the name. The primordial urgency 
of pleasure and pain, — the one to promote, the other to arrest 
movement, — is the motive power at the outset ; and a name 
may become suggestive of these urgencies to the recollection, 
rendering them operative in the ideal form. The dog made 
to. halt in the chase, by a word, is mentally referred by the 
word to the deterring pain of the whip. Also, in children, 
pain and pleasure, the first associates with actions, can have 
their motive force transferred to language, which is hence- 
forth a distinct power in singling out desired movements. 

6. Another instrumentality for extending volition is 
Imitation. 

It has often been alleged, and is perhaps commonly be- 
lieved, that Imitation is instinctive. The fact is otherwise. 
There is no ability to imitate in the new-born infant ; the 
power is a late and slow acquisition, and one especially fa- 
vourable for testing the general theory of the growth of will. 
Imitation (of what is seen) implies a bond of connexion be- 
tween the sight of a movement executed by another person, 
and the impulse to move the same organ in ourselves ; as in 
learning to dance. For vocal imitation, the links are between 
sensations in the ear, and movements of the chest, larynx, 
and mouth. The acquirement of articulate speech may be 
observed to take place thus. Some spontaneous articulation 
is necessary to begin with ; the sound impresses the ear, and 
possibly communicates an agreeable stimulus, the tendency of 
which would be to sustain the vocal exertion. At all events, 
there is the commencement of an association between an arti- 
culating effort or movement, and an effect on the ear. Every 
repetition strengthens the growing bond ; and the progress is 
accelerated when other persons catch up, and continue the 
sound. The attempt may now be made to invert the order, 
to make the articulating exertion arise at the instigation of 
the sound heard. This will not succeed at first ; an associa- 



TMITA.TIOK 335 

tion must be very firm in order to operate in the inverted 
order. But on some chance occasion, after repeated urgency, 
the spontaneity comes round, and it being preceded by the 
characteristic sensation, the associating link is strengthened 
according to the imitative order ; and very soon the adhesion 
is complete. This process is gone through with several other 
articulations, and in the meantime, the voice becomes more 
ready to burst out at the hearing of articulate sounds, so that 
the trials are multiplied ; the correcting power being the felt 
coincidence with the sound proposed for imitation. The 
child told to say ta, will perhaps say n&, ma ; at this period, 
however, it understands the tones of dissatisfaction expressed 
by others, if not aware of the discrepancy between its own 
performance and the model. After a time, it will become 
alive to the success of the coincidence. The primordial stimuli 
of pleasure and pain, are still the agency at work ; spoDtaneity 
must precede ; association in time completes the connexion ; 
and an entirely new and distinct means is gained for deter- 
mining specific actions. 

The imitation of Pitch, the groundwork of the art of 
singing, goes through the same routine. A note spontaneously 
uttered impresses the ear with its pitch ; and an association 
is commenced between the special tension of the vocal muscles 
and that sensation ; which association goes on strengthening 
until the sound heard brings on the muscular effect. How 
rapid and complete this acquirement shall be, depends on the 
endowment of the ear, and on other circumstances already 
described. 

The imitation of Movements at sight comprises a large 
part of our early voluntary education. The course is still the 
same. Movements, from natural spontaneity, — of the arms, 
lands, fingers, and other visible parts, — must occur and be 
seen ; the active muscular impulses are united with the visible 
or ocular appearances; eventually, the appearances (as 
manifested by others) can evoke the active impulses. If any 
pleasure attends the feeling of successful coincidence, or if any 
pain is made to go along with the insufficient reproduction of 
the model, there is an appeal to the fundamental motives, for 
continuing the successful, and abandoning the unsuccessful 
acts. The child is urged to clap hands ; some movements are 
made, but not the proper ones ; the depression of ill- success 
leads to their cessation. Perhaps no others take their place 
on that occasion ; at another time, a more successful attempt is 
made, and the coincidence is agreeable ; the bent is sustained, 



336 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 

and an associating lesson given, under the stimulus (so favour- 
able to contiguous adhesion) of a burst of the elation of 
success. 

The volitional links, constituted in the acquirements of 
Imitation, are very numerous. They should have to be 
reckoned by hundreds, if not by thousands. A certain 
amount of Imitativeness belongs to animals. The young of 
many species are guided by the old in their early attempts. 
The characteristic of gregariousness follows the imitative 
power ; there could be no community of action without this 
aptitude. 

7. A farther extension of the voluntary acquirements 
leads to the power of Acting upon the Wish to move. 

We can rise up, stretch forth the hand, sound a note, from 
the mere wish to perform these acts, without the considera- 
tion of any ultimate end of pleasure sought or pain avoided. 
Not that such movements occur without some reference to the 
final ends of human action. We do not go through the pro- 
cess called wishing, unless instigated by some motive, that 
is, in the last resort, some pleasure or pain. Moreover, we 
very seldom perform movement merely for the sake of moving ; 
we may show our ability to any one denying it, and then the 
motive is either the pleasure of power or the pain of humilia- 
tion — both highly efficacious as springs of action. Most 
usually when we move to a wish, it is the wish to gain some 
end, the action being the means ; as when thirsty, and passing 
a spring of water, we will or wish to perform the movements 
for drinking. 

The link of association formed in order to confer voluntary 
power in this particular form, is the link between our idea of 
the movement and the movement itself; between the idea of 
raising the hand, and the act of raising it, there being a motive 
or urgency towards some end. The growth of this link is a 
step in advance of the imitative acquirement, and precisely in 
the same direction ; imitation supposes a connexion between 
a movement and the sight of that movement performed by 
another person, as the drill-master; acting from a wish to move 
is to perform the movement on the thought, idea, or recol- 
lection or the appearance of the movement ; the guiding cir- 
cumstance is the coincidence of the actual movement as seen 
with the ideal picture of it ; when we raise the hand to a cer- 
tain height, we know that we have conformed to the idea 
given in our wish. 



MOVEMENT TO THE IDEA OF THE EFFECT. 337 

This farther acquisition, the following out of imitation, 
involves a large stock of ideal representations of all possible 
movements, gained during our own performance of these move- 
ments, and our seeing others perform them. We have ideas of 
opening and closing the hand, spreading the fingers, grasping 
and letting loose ; of putting the arms in all postures, and 
through varying degrees of rapidity. In acquiring those ideas 
we acquire also the links or connexions between them and the 
actual putting forth of the movements themselves ; and but 
for these acquired links, voluntary power in its most familiar 
exercise would be entirely wanting. We have ideas also of the 
motions of our legs and feet ; we form the wish to give a kick, 
and the power to fulfil the wish implies a link of association 
between the idea of the action, as a visible phenomenon, and 
the definite muscular stimuli for bringing the movement to 
pass. If no observation had ever been bestowed on the lower 
extremities, so as to arrive at this piece of education, the wish 
formed would be incompetent to create the act, notwithstand- 
ing the existence of a motive. 

8. Voluntary power is consummated by the association 
of movements with the idea of the Effect to be produced. 

When we direct our steps across the street to a certain 
house, the antecedent in the mind is the idea of our entering 
that house. When we stir the fire, the antecedent is the idea of 
producing the appearance of a blazing mass, together with the 
sensation of warmth. When we carry the hand to the mouth, it 
is by virtue of a connexion between the movements and the 
idea of satisfying hunger and thirst. In writing, the idea of 
certain things to be expressed is connected directly with the 
required movements of the hand. 

Here we have a still more advanced class of associations. 
In accordance with the usual course of our progressive ac- 
quirements, intermediate links disappear, and a bridge is formed 
directly between what were the beginning and the end of a 
chain. The thing that we are bent on doing is what properly 
engages our attention ; success in that is the pleasurable 
motive, failure the painful motive ; exertion is continued 
until we succeed ; and an association is formed between the 
actions producing the end and the end itself. We come to a 
shut door ; the idea in the mind accompanied with the state of 
feeling that makes the motive, — a present want, prospective 
relief, — is the idea of that door open. Instead of thinking 
first of the movement of the hand in the act of opening, and 



338 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 

proceeding from that to the action itself, we are carried at 
once from the idea of the open door to execute the movement 
of turning the handle. 

The examples recently dwelt on have been chiefly move- 
ments guided by Sight and ideas of sight. It is scarcely 
necessary to do more than allude to the case of Hearing. 
Vocal Imitation is the association of sounds heard with move- 
ments of the organs of voice. Vocalizing to a Wish involves 
a sufficient adhesion between a vocal exertion and the idea 
or recollection of the sound so produced, as when a musician 
pitches a note and commences an air ; or when a speaker 
gives utterance to words. These adhesions enter into the 
education of the individual in singing and in speaking, and 
are necessarily very numerous in a cultivated man or woman. 
Lastly, these associations are bridged over, and a link formed 
at once between movements of the voice and the idea of some 
end to be gained by its instrumentality ; as in raising the 
voice to the shrill point for calling some one distant ; or as 
when, without having in mind the idea of the words c right 
face/ the officer of a company gives the word of command 
merely on the conception of the effect intended. 



CHAPTER III. 

CONTEOL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. 

1. As our voluntary actions consist in putting forth 
muscular power, the control of Feeling and of Thought is 
through the muscles. 

Hitherto we have seen, in the operation of the will, the 
exerting of definite, select, and, it may be, combined move- 
ments for the gaining of ends. We have spoken only of 
muscular intervention in the attainment of our wishes. We 
have not even entertained as questions, whether the blood can 
circulate more or less rapidly, or the digestion accommodate 
itself, in obedience to pleasure and pain. In an emotional 
wave, there is a participation of organic change. A shock of 
pain deranges the organic functions ; pleasure, by the Law of 
Conservation, is accompanied with organic, no less than with 



VOLUNTARY CONTROL OPERATES THROUGH MUSCLES. 339 

muscular, vigour. So far as concerns the fundamental link 
expressed by this law, there might be an association of 
organic, as well as of muscular, changes with states of plea- 
sure and with states of pain ; and often to the same good 
purpose : the augmentation of respiratory or of digestive 
vigour would directly heighten pleasure and abate pain. 
Notwithstanding all which facts, the muscular energies are 
alone selected for those definite associations with states of 
feeling which constitute the will. The power of movement 
stands alone in possessing the flexibility, the isolation, the inde- 
pendence, necessary for entering into the multifarious unions 
above detailed ; and when we speak of voluntary control, 
we mean a control of the muscles. An explanation has, 
therefore, to be furnished of the stretching out of this control 
to feeling and to thought, which are phenomena more than 
muscular. 

CONTROL OF THE FEELINGS. 

2. The physical accompaniments of a feeling are (1) 
diffused nerve currents, (2) organic changes, and (3) 
muscular movements. The intervention of the will being 
restricted to movements, the voluntary control of the 
feelings hinges on the muscular accompaniments. 

Muscular diffusion being only one of three elements, we 
have to learn from experience whether it plays a leading, or 
only a subordinate part. There are various alternative sup- 
positions. The movements may be so essential, that their 
arrest is the cessation of the conscious state. Or the case 
may be that the other manifestations are checked by the 
refusal of the muscles to concur. Lastly, the movements may 
be requisite to the fall play of the feeling, but not to its 
existing in a less degree, or in a modified form. 

Referring to the arbitration of experience, we find such 
facts as these. First, In a comparatively feeble excitement, 
the outward suppression leads, not immediately, but very 
soon, to the cessation of the feeling. There is at the outset 
a struggle, but the refusal of the muscular vent seems to be 
the extinction of the other effects. The feeling does not 
cease at once with the suppression of the movements, showing 
that it can subsist without these ; but the stoppage of the 
movement being followed soon by the decay of the feeling, 
we infer that the other accompaniments, and especially the 
nerve currents, are checked and gradually extinguished under 
the muscular arrest. A shock of surprise, for example, if not 



340 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. 

very powerful, can soon be quieted by repressing all the 
movements of expression. It is to be observed, however, 
that this is an emotion peculiarly muscular in its diffusion ; 
the remark being far less true of the emotions that strongly 
affect the organic functions, as fear, tenderness, and pains 
generally. 

Secondly, In strong feelings, the muscular repression 
appears not merely to fail, but to augment the consciousness 
of the feeling, as if the nervous currents were intensified by 
resistance. A certain impetus has been given, and must find 
a vent, and, if restrained outwardly, it seems to be more 
violent inwardly. We are familiar with such sayings as the 
mind 'preying upon itself,' for want of objective display, the 
need of an outlet to the surcharged emotions, the venting of 
joy, or grief, and the like. 

The analogy of the weaker feelings makes it probable that, 
even with the stronger, muscular resistance would ultimately 
quell the interior currents of the brain, together with the 
mental excitement. The difficulty is to find a motive sufficient 
to overcome the stimulus of a strong emotion. It may seem 
better to give way at once than to make an ineffectual resist- 
ance. A burst of anger might be suppressed by a strong 
muscular effort ; but the motive must be either powerful in 
itself, or aided by a habit of control. 

Thirdly, There is a certain tendency in the muscular 
expression of a feeling to induce the feeling, through the con- 
nexion established, either naturally or by association, between 
this and the other portions of the physical circles of effects 
(Sympathy, § 2). This supposes that there is no intense pre- 
occupation of the brain and mind ; we could not force hilarious 
joy upon a depressed system. Besides, it may be our wish 
merely to counterfeit, before others, an emotion that we do 
not wish to feel, as happens more or less with the player on 
the stage. 

3. The voluntary command of the muscles, as attained 
in the manner already described, is adequate to suppress 
their movements under emotion. 

When the will has reached the summit of general com- 
mand, as indicated in the preceding chapter, it is fit for any 
mode of exertion that can be represented to the mind ; the 
mere visible idea of the movement to be effected will single 
out the reality. The mature volition is thus competent to 
whatever efforts may be necessary for directing any of the 



EDUCATION IN THE SUPPKESSION OF FEELINGS. 341 

muscles to move, or for restraining their movement; all 
which is applicable to the present case. 

But long prior to this consummation, an education for 
suppressing the feelings^ or at least the manifestation of them, 
is usually entered on. It is desired, for example, to cause a 
child to restrain inordinate crying, at an age when few volun- 
tary links have been forged, and when recourse must be had 
to the primitive starting point of all volition. In the very 
early stages, the absence of definite connexions between the 
pleasurable feeling and the suppression,, and between the 
painful feeling and the indulgence, will lead to a great many 
fruitless attempts, as in all the beginnings of volition. A few 
successful coincidences will go far to fill up the blankness of 
the union between the motive impulses and the feelings in 
the special case ; and the progress may then be rapid. The 
remaining difficulty will be the violence of the emotional 
wave, which may go beyond the motive power of available 
pleasure or admissible pain, even although the link of con- 
nexion between these and the definite impulses is sufficiently 
plain. This, however, is the difficulty all through life, in the 
control of the more intense paroxysms of emotion, and has 
nothing to do with the immaturity of the volitional links 
between pleasurable or painful motives and the actions sug- 
gested for securing the pleasure and banishing the pain. 

The case is precisely analogous to the breaking in of 
colts, or the training of young dogs ; the want of determinate 
connexions gives much trouble in the commencing stages ; 
and as the deficiency is made up, the education proceeds 
apace. 

COMMAND OF THE THOUGHTS. 

4. It has been already considered (Compound Asso- 
ciation, § 8) in what way the will can influence the 
train of thoughts. The effect is due to the control of 
Attention. 

We cannot, by mere will, command one set of ideas to 
arise rather than another, or make up for a feeble bond of 
adhesion ; the forces of association are independent of voli- 
tion. But the will can control some of the conditions of 
intellectual recovery : one of which is the directing of the 
attention to one thing present rather than to another. In 
solving a geometrical problem, it is necessary to recall various 
theorems previously learnt ; for that purpose, the attention is 
kept fixed upon the diagrammatic construction representing 



342 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. 

the problem, and is turned away from all other things ; in 
which attitude, the ideas suggested by contiguity and by 
similarity, are geometrical ideas more or less allied to the 
case in hand. 

The case now supposed is an exercise of voluntary atten- 
tion upon the muscles that guide the exercise of vision. The 
turning the eyes upon one part of the field of view, and not 
upon another, is a mode of voluntary control in no respect 
peculiar. 

5. The command of the Attention passes beyond the 
senses to the ideas or thoughts. Of various objects com- 
ing into recollection, we can ponder upon one to the 
neglect of the rest. The will has power over muscular 
movements in idea. 

It is a fact, that we can concentrate mental, no less than 
bodily, attention. When memory brings before us a string of 
facts, we can detain one and let the rest drop out of mind. 
Reviving our knowledge of a place, we are not obliged to go 
over the whole of it at an equal rate ; we are able, and are 
usually disposed, to dwell upon some features, and thereby to 
stop the current of farther resuscitation. 

In all this, the will seems to transcend the usual limits 
assigned to it, namely, the prompting of the voluntary 
muscles. Indeed, the fact would be wholly anomalous and 
inexplicable, but for the local identity of actual and of ideal 
movements (Contiguity, § 11) ; and even with that local 
identity, it is only from experience that we could be aware 
that voluntary control could enter the sphere of the ideaL 
When we are tracing a mountain in recollection, we are, in 
everything but the muscular contractions of the eye or the 
head, repeating the same currents, and re-animating the same 
nervous tracks, as in the survey of the actual mountain - and, 
on the spur of a motive, we detain the mental gaze upon the 
top, the sides, the contour, the vegetation, exactly as in the 
real presence. 

6. This part of voluntary control has its stages of 
growth, like the rest ; and enters as an all-important 
element into our intellectual or thinking aptitudes. 

Two courses may be assigned for the acquisition of this 
higher control. It may follow, at some distance, the command 
of the corresponding actual movements ; or it may have to 
pass through an independent route, beginning with spon- 



VOLUNTARY CONTROL OF THE THOUGHTS. 343 

taneity, and guided by the influence of pleasure and pain, 
under the Law of Conservation. In all probability, the first 
supposition is the correct one. We seem gradually to con- 
tract the power of mental concentration, after having attained 
the command of the senses, — the ability to direct the eye 
wherever we please, or to listen to one sound to the disregard 
of others. Having the full outward command, a certain share 
abides with us, when we pass from realities to ideas, from the 
sight of a building to the thought of it. The ability thus 
possessed is doubtless strengthened by exercise in the special 
domain of the ideal ; a wide difference exists between the 
man that has seldom put forth the power of mental concentra- 
tion, and him that has been in the constant practice of it. 

Howsoever attained, the use of this power in intellectual 
production is great and conspicuous. Profuse reproduction, 
the result of observation and retentiveness, is of little avail 
for any valuable purpose, whether scientific, artistic, or prac- 
tical, unless there be a power of selection, detention, and con- 
trol, on the spur of the end to be achieved. By such power 
of fixing attention, both on actual objects, and on the ideas 
arising by mental suggestion, we can make up for natural 
deficiencies, and, both in acquirements and in production, can 
pass over more highly gifted, but less resolute competitors. 
When the motives are naturally strong, and fortified by habit, 
we do not allow the attention, either bodily or mental, to 
wander, or to follow the lead of chance reproduction, as in a 
dream or reverie ; our definite purpose, whether to lay up a 
store of words, to master a principle, to solve a problem, to 
polish a work of taste, to construct a mechanical device, or to 
reconcile a clash of other men's wills, keeps the mind fixed 
upon whatever likely thoughts arise, and withdraws us at once 
from what is seen to have no bearing on the work. 

When what is meant by 4 plodding industry/ ' steadiness/ 
* application/ ' patience/ is opposed to natural brilliancy, 
facility, or abundance of ideas, it is, in other words, force of 
will displayed in mental concentration, as against the forces 
of mere intellectual reproduction ; two distinct parts of our 
constitution, following different laws, and unequally mani- 
fested in different individuals. 

7. The voluntary command of the Thoughts has been 
formerly shown to enter into Constructive Association. 

In the illustrations under the preceding head, ' construc- 
tiveness' has been involved ; but it deserves a more special 



344 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. 

mention. The distinguishing feature of the process is a 
voluntary selection, adaptation, and combination, to suit some 
end ; the motive force of this end is the active stimulus, 
> and the agreement with it, the guide or touchstone of all 
suggestions. In verbal constructiveness, for example, a cer- 
tain meaning is to be conveyed to another person ; a number 
of words spring up by memory, related to that meaning, but 
demanding to be selected, arranged, qualified, in order to 
suit it exactly. The revival of past trains of language 
through contiguity and similarity, or a combination of con- 
tiguities and similarities, provides the separate elements ; the 
will puts them together, under the sense of suitability; so 
long as that sense is dissatisfied, selection and adjustment 
must go on ; when the satisfying point is reached, the con- 
structive efforts cease. 

8. The command of the Thoughts is an adjunct in the 
control of the Feelings. 

The command over the thoughts is an exceedingly power- 
ful adjunct in the control of the Feelings ; being probably 
more efficacious than the voluntary sway of the muscular 
manifestations. Our emotions are more or less associated 
with objects, circumstances, and occasions, and spring up 
when these are present either in reality, or in idea ; affection 
is awakened at the sight or thought of what is lovely, or 
endeared to us ; fear is apt to arise when perils are brought to 
view. In this connexion lies the power of the orator and the 
poet to stir up the emotions of men. Now, we may ourselves, 
by force of will, entertain one class of thoughts, and disregard 
or banish another class. When a person has roused our anger 
by an injury, we can turn our thoughts upon the same per- 
son's conduct on other occasions, when of a nature to inspire 
love, admiration, or esteem ; the consequence of such a diver- 
sion of the ideas will be to suppress the angry feeling by its 
opposite. 

A fit of hilarious levity is difficult to quench by mere 
voluntary suppression of the muscular movements ; the more 
so that the diaphragm is a muscle not so well under command 
as the muscles of the limbs. A more powerful instrument in 
such a case would be the turning of the thoughts upon some 
serious or indifferent matter; and especially a painful or 
depressing subject. Persons guilty of levity during a religious 
address are usually reminded of the terrors of the unknown 
world. 



COMMAND OF THE FEELINGS THROUGH THE THOUGHTS. 345 

The conquering of one strong feeling by exciting another, 
was designated by Thomas Chalmers, ' the expulsive power 
of a new affection,' and was much descanted on by him as an 
instrumentality of moral improvement. When a wrong taste 
was to be combated, he recommended the process of displacing 
it by the culture of something higher and better ; as in sub- 
stituting for the excitement of the theatre, or the alehouse, 
intellectual and other attractions. 

Without the assistance of a new emotion, we may subdue 
or modify a present feeling, by carrying the attention away 
from all the thoughts or trains of ideas that cluster about it, 
and give it support. If we have strength of motive enough 
for diverting the mind from the thoughts of an alarming 
danger to some entirely different subject, the state of terror 
will subside. 

The command of the thoughts requisite for such diversions 
is a high and uncommon gift or attainment, one of the most 
distinguishing examples of force of will, or of power of motive. 
There is a limit to the control thus exercised ; no amount of 
stimulus will so change the current of ideas as to make joy at 
once supervene upon a shock of depression. Still, by a not 
unattainable strength of motive, and the assistance of habit, 
one can so far restrain the outbursts of emotion, as to make 
some approach to equanimity of life. 

9. The reciprocal case— the power of the Feelings to 
command the Thoughts — is partly of the nature of Will, 
partly independent of the will. 

When under a pleasurable feeling, we cling to all the 
thoughts, images, and recollections that chime in with, and 
sustain it — as in a fit of affection, of self-complacency, or of 
revenge — the case is one of volition pure and simple. By the 
direct operation of the fundamental power of self-conservation, 
every activity bringing pleasure is maintained and increased ; 
and the exercise of attention, whether upon the things of 
sense or upon the stream of thought, is included in the prin- 
ciple. So, on the obverse side, a painful feeling ought to 
banish all the objects and ideas that tend to cherish it, just as 
we should remove a hot iron or a stinging nettle from the 
naked foot ; and this, too, happens to a great extent : a self- 
complacent man banishes from his mind all the incidents that 
discord with his pretensions ; an engrossed lover will not 
entertain the thought of obstacles and inevitable separation. 
In both these cases, the law of the will is fairly and strictly 



346 MOTIVES, OR ENDS. 

exemplified. And if there were no other influence at work, if 
the feelings had no other mode of operating, we should find 
ourselves always detaining thoughts, according as they give 
us pleasure, and turning our back upon such as produce pain, 
with an energy corresponding to the pain. 

But we have formerly remarked, and must presently notice 
still more particularly, that the feelings have another property, 
the property of detaining every idea in alliance with them, 
whether pleasurable or painful, in proportion to their intensity ; 
so that states of excitement, both painful and neutral, cause 
thoughts and images to persist in the mind by a power apart 
from the proper course of the will. A disgusting spectacle 
cannot be at once banished from the recollection, merely 
because it gives pain ; if the will were the only power in the 
case, the object would be discarded and forgotten with promp- 
titude. But the very fact that it has caused an intense or 
strong feeling gives it a persistence, in spite of the will. So 
any powerful shock, characterized neither by pleasure nor by 
pain, detains the mind upon the cause of it lor a considerable 
time, and engrains it as a durable recollection, not because the 
shock was pleasurable, but merely because it was strong. The 
natural course of the will is pursued at the same time ; it co- 
operates in the detention of the pleasurable, and in reducing 
the persistence of the painful ; but it is not the sole or the 
dominant condition in either. 



CHAPTEE IV. 
MOTIVES, OE ENDS. 

1. FffcOM the nature or definition of Will, pure and 
proper, the Motives, or Ends of action, are our Pleasures 
and Pains. 

In the Peelings, as formerly laid out, if the enumeration 
be complete, there ought to be found all the ultimate motive 
or ends of human action. The pleasures and pains of the 
various Senses (with the Muscular feelings), and of the 
Emotions, — embracing our whole susceptibility to happiness 
or misery, — are, in the last resort, the stimulants of our 



MOTIVES FROM OUR PLEASURES AND PAINS. 347 

activity, the objects of pursuit and avoidance. The actual 
presence of any one of the list of pleasures, set forth under 
the different departments of Feelings, urges to action for its 
continuance; the presence of any one of the included pains 
is a signal to action for its abatement. The final classification 
of Motives, therefore, is the classification of pleasurable and 
painful feelings. 

If we were to recapitulate what has been gone over, under 
the Senses and the Emotions, we should refer to the pleasures 
of Muscular Exercise and Repose, and the pains of Fatigue 
and of Restrained action ; the great variety of pleasurable 
and painful susceptibilities connected with Organic Life — in- 
cluding such powerful solicitations as Thirst, and Hunger, 
and the whole catalogue of painful Diseases, with the re- 
actionary condition named Health ; the numerous stimulations, 
pleasurable and painful, of the Five Senses — Tastes, Colours, 
Touches, Sounds, Sights ; the long array of the Special 
Emotions, containing potent charms and dread aversions — 
Novelty, Liberty, Tender and Sexual Emotion, Self-com- 
placency and Approbation, with their opposites ; the elation 
of Power and the depression of Impotence and Littleness, the 
Interest of Plot and Pursuit, the attractions of Knowledge, 
and the variegated excitements of Fine Art. 

2. The elementary pleasures and pains incite us to 
action, when only in prospect ; which implies an ideal per- 
sistence approaching to the power of actuality. 

The property of intellectual or ideal retention belongs 
more or less to all the feelings of the mind ; and has been 
usually adverted to in the description of each. The pain of 
over-fatigue is remembered after the occasion, and has a 
power to deter from the repetition of the actual state. 

The circumstances regulating the ideal persistence of 
pleasures and pains, so as to give them an efficacy as motives, 
are principally these : — 

(1) Their mere Strength, or Degree. It is a law of our 
intellectual nature that, other things being the same, the 
more vivid the present consciousness, the more it will persist 
or be remembered. This applies to pleasures, to pains, and 
to neutral excitement. A strong pleasure is better remembered 
than a weak ; a greater pain is employed in punishment, be- 
cause a less, being insufficiently remembered, is ineffectual to 
deter from crime. Our labours are directed, in the first place, 
to the causes of our great pleasures and our great pains, be- 



348 MOTIVES, OR ENDS. 

cause these are more tenaciously held in the memory, and 
less liable to be overborne by the pressure of the actual. 
The acute sensual pleasures 7 affection, praise, power, aesthetic 
charm, are strongly worked for, because strongly felt, and 
strongly remembered ; the more intense pains of disease, pri- 
vation, disgrace, have an abiding efficacy because of their 
strength. 

(2) Continuance and Repetition* The longer a pleasure is 
continued, and the oftener it is repeated, the better is it retained 
in absence as a motive to the will. It is the same with emo- 
tional states as it is with intellectual — with pain as with 
language, iteration gives intellectual persistence. A single 
attack of acute pain does not leave the intense precautionary 
motive generated by a series of attacks. Age and experience 
acquire moral wisdom, as well as intellectual ; strength of 
motive as well as extent and clearness of intellectual vision. 
After repeated failures, we give up a chase, in spite* of its 
allurements ; not merely because our hopes are weakened, but 
also because our recollection is strengthened, by the repeti- 
tion. Pleasures seldom tasted may not take their proper rank 
with us, in our habitual pursuits ; we do not work for them in 
proportion to what we should actually gain by their fruition. 

It necessarily happens that distance of time allows the 
memory of pleasure and pain to fade into imbecility of motive. 
A pleasure long past is deprived of its ideal enticement ; a 
pain of old date has lost its volitional sting. 

(3) Intellectual Rank. The feelings have a natural scale 
of intellectual persistency, commencing from the organic or 
physical sensibilities, and rising to the higher senses, and the 
more refined emotions.- The sensations of hearing and 
sight ; the pleasures of tender feeling, of complacency, of 
intellect, of Fine Art ; the pains of grief and of remorse, — are 
in their nature more abiding as motives than muscular exer- 
cise, or occasional indigestion. 

(4) Special Endowment for the memory of Pleasure and 
Pain. It is a fact that some minds are constituted by nature 
more retentive of pleasures and pains than others; just as 
there are differences in the memory for language or for spec- 
tacle. A superior degree of prudence, under circumstances 
in other respects the same, is resolvable into this fact. No 
one is unmoved by a present delight, or a present suffering ; 
but when the reality is vanished, the recollection will be 
stronger in one man than in another — that is, will be more 
powerful to cope with the new and present urgencies that 



REMEMBERED FEELINGS. 349 

put to the proof our memory given motives. The pains of 
incautious living are, in some minds, blotted out as soon as 
they are past ; in others, they are retained with almost un- 
diminished force. Both Prudence, and the Power of Sym- 
pathy with others, presuppose the tenacious memory for 
pleasures and pains ; in other words, they are fully accounted 
for by assuming that speciality. Virtue, although not Know- 
ledge, as Sokrates maintained, reposes on a property allied to 
Intellect, a mode of our Betentiveness, the subject matter 
being, not the intellectual elements commonly recognized, 
but pleasures and pains. 

It is not easy to refer this special mode of Betentiveness 
to any local endowment, as we connect the memory for 
colour with a great development of the optical sensibility. 
Most probably, the power is allied to the Subjectivity of the 
character, the tendency to dwell upon subject states, as 
opposed to the engrossment of objectivity. 

Prudential forethought and precaution in special things 
may be best referred to the greater strength and repetition 
of the feelings ; as when a man is careful of his substance 
and not of his reputation ; or the converse. On whatever 
subjects we feel most acutely, we best remember our feelings, 
and yield to them as motives of pursuit and avoidance. It 
is unnecessary to invoke, for such differences, a general 
retentiveness for pleasures and pains. 

(5) In the effective recollection of feelings, for the pur- 
poses of the will, we are aided by collateral associations. 
Any strong pleasure gives impressiveness to all the acts and 
sensations that concurred with it; and these having their 
own independent persistency, as actions or as object states, 
aid in recovering the pleasure. Every one remembers 
the spot, and the occupation of the moment, when some 
joyful news was communicated. The patient in a surgical 
operation retains mentally the indelible stamp of the room 
and the surgeon's preparations. One part of the complex 
experience, so impressed, buoys up the rest. 

It is scarcely necessary to add that the motive power of a 
feeling of recent occurrence partakes of the effectiveness of 
the actuality. 

3. We direct our labours to many things that, though 
only of the nature of Means, attain by association all the 
force of our ultimate ends of pursuit. Such are J\Ioney ? 
Bodily Strength, Knowledge, Formalities, and Virtues. 



350 MOTIVES, OR ENDS. 

When any one object is constantly associated with a 
primary end of life, it acquires in our mind all the importance 
of the end; fields, and springs of water, are prized with 
the avidity belonging to the necessities of life. The great 
comprehensive means, termed wealth or Money, when its 
powers are understood, is aimed at according to the sum 
of the gratifications that it can bring, and of the pains that 
it can ward off, to ourselves and to the sharers in our sym- 
pathies. Such at least is the ideal of a well-balanced mind ; 
for few persons follow this or any other end ? mediate or 
ultimate, according to its precise value. 

We have seen that a memory unfaithful to pleasure and 
pain misguides us in our voluntary pursuit of ends ; not merely 
allowing the present to lord it over the future, but evincing 
partiality or preference as between things equally absent and 
ideal. The intervention of the associated ends leads to new 
disturbances in our estimate, and in the corresponding pur- 
suit. The case of Money exemplifies these disturbing causes. 
In it, we have the curious fact of a means converted into a 
final end. 

When anything has long been an object of solicitude from 
its bearing on the ultimate susceptibilities of the mind, the 
pleasure of its attainment corresponds to its influence on those 
susceptibilities. Without proceeding to realize the purchas- 
able delights of money, we have already a thrill of enjoyment 
in the acquisition of it ; the more so if we have felt such 
pains as physical privation, toil, impotence, indignity, tastes 
forbidden, with the aggravation of multiplied fears. The 
sense of being delivered from all this incubus, is a rebound, 
delightful in itself, before proceeding to convert the means 
into the final ends. Many ideal pains are banished at once by 
the possession of the instrument unused. There arises in 
minds prone to the exaggeration of fear, a reluctance to part 
with this wonderful sense of protection ; which alone would 
suggest the keeping, rather than the spending, of money. 
When we add the feeling of superiority over others attaching 
to the possession and the possible employment of money, and 
farther the growth of a species of affection towards what has 
long occupied the energies, and given thrills of delight, we 
shall understand the process of inversion whereby a means 
becomes a final end. We should also take into account, in 
the case of money, its definite and numerical character, giving 
a charm to the arithmetical mind, and enabling the possesser 
to form a precise estimate of his gains and his total. 



ASSOCIATED ENDS. 351 

Similar observations apply to the other associated ends. 
Health is nothing in itself; it is a great deal as a means to 
happiness. To this extent, and no farther, the rational mind 
will pursue it ; we should only be losers, if, in seeking health, 
we surrendered the things that make life agreeable. The pre- 
vailing error, however, is the other way. The retentiveness 
for the pains and discomforts of ill-health, and for the enjoy- 
ments thereby forfeited, is not good enough in the mass of 
men ; and needs to be re-inforced by inculcation and reflection. 

Like Money, Knowledge is liable to become an end in 
itself. Principally valuable as guidance in the various opera- 
tions of life, as removing the stumbling blocks, and the terrors 
of ignorance, it contracts in some minds an independent 
charm, and gathers round it so many pleasing associations as 
to be a satisfying end of pursuit. The knowledge of many 
Languages is an immense toil and an incumbrance ; but the 
sense of the end to be served gives them a value, which some 
minds feel in an exaggerated degree. 

The Formalities of Law, of Business, and of Science are 
indispensable as means, worthless as ends. Not unfrequently, 
persons become enamoured of them to such an extent as to 
sacrifice the real ends on their account. The explanation is 
much the same as already given for the love of money. 

Justice and Truth are generally held to be ends in them- 
selves ; but when we enquire more minutely into their bearings, 
we find that their importance is sufficiently justified by their 
instrumentality to other ends. If Justice were perfectly in- 
different to human happiness, no nation would maintain 
Judges and Law Courts ; and if Truth were of no more service 
than falsehood, Science would be unknown. But as both these 
qualities are entwined with human welfare at every turning, 
it being impossible for the human race to exist without some 
regard to them, we cannot wonder that they attract our 
solicitude, and that we have a lively satisfaction in contem- 
plating their triumph. The emotion of terror attaches us 
strongly, perhaps even in an exaggerated degree, to the 
Security conferred by Justice, among other good social 
arrangements ; and we sometimes cling to a mere figment 
because it once represented this great attribute. 

4. The Motives to the Will are swayed and biassed, by 
the Persistence of Ideas. 

Allusion has repeatedly been made to the intellectual pro- 
perty of all feelings, whereby they persist in the mind, and 



352 MOTIVES, OR ENDS. 

give persistence to the ideas and objects related to them. 
According to the degree of the excitement, and irrespective of 
its quality — as pleasure, pain, or neutral feeling— is the hold 
that it takes of the present consciousness, and imparts to the 
thoughts allied with it. The germ of the property is seen in 
the stimulation of the senses, more particularly sight, as when 
we involuntarily keep the eye fixed upon a light, even pain- 
fully intense. The infatuation of the moth is the crowning 
instance of the power of sensation, as such, to detain and con- 
trol the movements ; for although the distant flame may not 
be painfully intense, the singed body ought to neutralize any 
pleasure that the light can give. 

A pleasurable feeling, besides moving the will, detains the 
thoughts, not simply as pleasure, but as excitement. This 
would be all right, if every such state were purely and solely 
pleasurable. But when we examine closely our very best 
pleasures, we find that, in all of them, more or less, the drops 
of pure delight are mingled with a quantity of mere excite- 
ment. Any great pleasure is sure to leave behind it an 
enduring state of neutral feeling, the pleasurable part of the 
wave subsiding long before the general tremor has ceased. 
But while there is excitement, there is detention and occu- 
pation of mind, and the exclusion of unrelated subjects and 
ideas. In an agreeable marvel, there is a small burst of 
genuine pleasure, but a still wider and more lasting state of 
excitement. 

Hence our pleasurable emotions are all liable to detain the 
mind unduly, as regards our proper gratification. Thus, the 
pleasures of the tender emotion, if at all strong, are sur- 
rounded with an atmosphere of still stronger excitement ; and 
the objects of our affection are apt to persist in the mind 
beyond the degree of the pleasure they give us, although in 
some proportion to that pleasure. The mind of the mother 
is arrested and held partly by the strong pleasures of mater- 
nity, and partly by the ' Fixed Idea ' consequent on the still 
greater amount of agitation that she passes through. In the 
sexual feelings, there is the like mixture of pleasure and 
fixed idea, carrying the mind beyond the estimate of pleasure 
and pain, to the state named 'passion.' The pleasures of 
Power and Ambition are liable to the same inflammatory and 
passionate mixture. A man may be highly susceptible to the 
delights of power, without being passionately so, if he is 
moved solely by the strict value of that pleasure, and not by 
the engrossing power of the excitement so apt to invest any 



THE RATIONAL PURSUIT OF ENDS THWARTED. 353 

real pleasure. The gratification of revenge is a real pleasure, 
but the allied excitement is something still stronger; the 
idea of the revenge possesses the mind so strongly, that, to 
act it out, we will sacrifice more than the value of the pleasure 
accruing from it. In this passion especially, our happiness 
would often lie in forgetting the whole circumstances ; but 
under excitement, the balancing of good and evil is impos- 
sible. We must execute whatever thought the mind at that 
moment, in the heat of feeling, exclusively entertains. 

The operation is seen in still bolder relief in the painful 
feelings. As already remarked, the proper action of the will, 
having regard to our greatest good, would banish the thought 
of a disgust, or a blow, or a discord ; but the excitement 
engendered is a force to detain the disagreeable subject. We 
are often haunted for life by some great and painful shock 
persisting in the memory in virtue of its intensity. 

The extreme instance of irrational and morbid persistence 
is shown in Fear. It is the nature of that passion to take an 
excessive hold of the intellectual trains ; everything that has 
ever been accompanied with the perturbation of fear has 
contracted an undue persistence, baffling and paralyzing the 
operation of the will. Our greatest pleasures are liable to 
plunge us into fears ; the pleasurable emotions above named, 
as for example the maternal feeling, have their moments of 
serious alarm and their protracted states of solicitude. 

The rational pursuit of ends is thus liable to many 
thwartings. The imperfect recollection of pleasures and 
pains, the tendency to substitute the means for the ends, the 
undue persistence of objects through emotion — are all against 
us. To these circumstances, we must add some others. 
Eirst, our insufficient experience of good and evil, especially 
in early years, disqualifies us from judging of the comparative 
value of different objects of pursuit ; the youthful predi- 
lections for this or that profession must needs be founded on 
a very inexact estimate. In the second place, many kinds of 
good and evil are only probable in their advent ; such as the 
attainment of an office, the success of an enterprise, good or 
ill health. This introduces a totally new consideration to 
complicate the operation of our motives. The beau ideal of 
rationality consists in pursuing all objects with reference to 
the probability of their attainment ; but probability is liable 
to the fluctuating estimates of hope and fear; states that 
are governed partly by the intelligence and partly by the 
feelings. 

23 



354 CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. 

In the last place, our Habits are often opposed to the 
rational estimate of good or evil. Not merely what we term 
bad habits, which are irrational impulses confirmed by repe- 
tition, but conduct at first well calculated for our interests 
may, through change of circumstances, operate against our 
happiness on the whole ; just as laws, originally good, may 
be continued when they have become noxious. The habit of 
saving may deprive us, in old age, of essential comforts ; the 
habit of deference to others may prove hostile to our comfort 
when we come to a position of command. 

These various considerations are of special importance in 
preparing the way for the great ethical question as to the 
existence of disinterested motives in the human mind. 



CHAPTER V. 
THE CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. 

1. When two pleasures concur, the result is a greater 
pleasure ; when a pleasure concurs with a pain, the greater 
will neutralize the less, leaving a surplus. 

As mere emotions, concurring pleasure and pain neutralize 
each other ; and in this way, pain is frequently stifled before 
acting as a motive to the will. To procure an assuaging plea- 
sure is a way of dealing with a pain, no less effectual than 
removing the cause by voluntary exertions. In one class of 
minds, the pains of life are met by tenderness, grief, sorrow, 
sympathy, by venting them in language, and by other 
emotional manifestations ; and not by measures of prevention 
or extirpation. Such minds are the profusely emotional ; and 
are in marked contrast with another class, the active or 
volitional, whose peculiarity it is to take active proceedings 
to cut off the sources of the evil. 

2. The natural Spontaneity of the system may come 
into conflict with the proper Motives to the Will. 

Spontaneity is a power all through life. The times of re- 
newed vigour, after rest and nourishment, are times when the 
system is disposed to active exertion ; when this is refused, 
there ensues a conflict. The young, being most exuberant in 



CONFLICT WITH SPONTANEITY. 355 

activity, burst out incontinently at those moments, unless 
withheld by very powerful motives. This is one of the 
impulses that require a severe discipline, in the shape of strong 
counter-motives. The force of the spontaneity and the force 
of the counter-motives are then measured against each other, 
and we call the one that succeeds stronger, having no other 
criterion of comparative strength. 

When the activity is unduly stimulated, as by drugs, by 
pungent sensations, or by quick movements, it is so much the 
greater a power, and needs a greater motive to curb it. We 
see this in the restlessness of children in their violent sports ; 
the natural activity is heightened by stimulation, and made 
harder to resist ; quiescence is doubly repugnant. 

A periodical tendency to action, the result of habit, would 
operate in the same way ; as this is sometimes in opposition to 
the other motives, there is conflict, and the successful side is 
called the stronger. 

3. Exhaustion, and natural inaction of the powers, are 
a bar to the influence of Motives. 

This is the same fact in obverse. When the system is 
exhausted or physically indisposed, — its spontaneity and avail- 
able energy past, — a more than ordinary motive is required to 
bring on exertion. The jaded horse needs more spurring. 
The exhausted mountain guide can be got to proceed only by 
the promise of an extra fee. Napoleon took his men across the 
Alps by plying them with the rattle of the drums when every- 
thing else failed. 

4. In the conflicts of Opposing Volitions, properly so 
called, we may consider first the case of two Motives in 
the Actual. 

Two actual pains or pleasures sometimes incite in opposite 
ways. An animal may be fatigued and also hungry ; the one 
state prompting to rest, the other to exertion. We judge of the 
stronger motive by the result. A person may feel the pain of 
indoor confinement, but may decline the disagreeable alterna- 
tive of cold and wet. In company, we may be solicited by 
spectacle, by music, by conversation ; one gains the day, and 
is pronounced the greater pleasure, or at least the stronger 
motive. 

One might continue, without end, to cite these conflicts of 
actual sensation or emotion, appending the uniform conclusion 
that the upshot is the test of the stronger motive. The instruc- 



356 CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. 

tion derivable from each observation of this kind is a fact in 
the character of the person, or the animal, observed ; we find 
out the preferences, or comparative susceptibility of different 
persons, or of the same person at different times. 

We are to presume, in the absence of any indications to 
the contrary, that the stronger motive in the shape of actual 
and present sensation or emotion, is the greater pleasure, or 
the smaller pain. Pleasure and pain, in the actual or real ex- 
perience, are to be held as identical with motive power. If a 
man is laid hold of and detained by music, we must suppose 
that he is pleased to that extent. The disturbances and 
anomalies of the will scarcely begin to tell in the actual feel- 
ing. Any one crossing the street direct, through dirty pools, 
is inferred to have less pain from being splashed than from 
being delayed. 

This remark is of importance in furnishing us with a clue 
to the pleasures and pains of other beings. The voluntary 
preferences of individuals, when two actual pleasures or pains 
are weighed together, show which is the greater in their case. 
An object that weighs as nothing in stimulating the will for 
attainment, is to be held as giving no pleasure ; if, on the 
other hand, it never moves to aversion or avoidance, it is not 
a source of pain. The pleasures and pains of men and of 
animals are indicated with considerable fidelity by their volun- 
tary conduct, and especially when the comparison is made 
upon the present or the actual experience. We have few 
means of judging of the feelings of the lower animals ; they 
have but a narrow range of emotional expression ; and we are 
driven mainly to the study of their actions in pursuit or 
avoidance. We can see that a dog relishes a meal, and 
runs from a whipping. The lower we descend, the more do 
we lose the criterion of emotional expression, and depend 
upon the preference of action. There may be a certain am- 
biguity even in this test ; the influence of light, for example, 
works to the extent of fascination, and so may other feel- 
ings. Probably this is an exceptional case ; at all events, if 
the test of the will is invalid, we have nothing beyond it to 
appeal to. 

There are certain allowances that we can easily make in 
the application of the will as a test of strength of feeling. 
We should observe the influence of a motive under all variety 
of states, as to vigour, rest, nourishment, so as to eliminate 
difference in the active organs. We should weigh each 
motive against every other, and thus check our estimate by 



PAINS AND PLEASURES IN THE ACTUAL. 357 

cross comparisons ; in this way, we can establish for each 
individual a scale of preferences, and obtain a diagnosis of 
emotional character. 

The comparison of one person with another requires an 
estimate to be made of the active disposition as a whole, or the 
proneness to active exertion generally. This may be gathered 
from the spontaneity, from the disposition to act for the sake 
of acting, and from all cases where we have an independent 
clue to the strength of a motive, as pleasure or pain. Two 
persons may be equally pained by an acute ailment ; while 
the one bestirs himself for relief and the other remains idle. 
If we except a greater proneness in some organs than in 
others, as vocal exuberance combined with general sluggishness, 
the active disposition is a single fact, a unity or totality ; the 
feelings are many and unequal. One statement will give the 
volitional character as a whole ; the estimates of the motives 
are as numerous as our distinct sensibilities. 

5. When the conflict is between the Actual and the 
Ideal, the result depends on the more or less vivid recol- 
lection of pleasure and pain. 

This opens up a much wider sphere of conflict. Our 
voluntary determinations are most frequently the preference 
of an actual feeling to an ideal one, or the converse. We 
refuse a pleasurable relish, because of subsequent organic pains 
abiding in the recollection. An ideal motive owes its power 
not to the strength of the original feeling alone, but to that 
coupled with all the circumstances tending to make it persist 
in the memory. A young man and an old may be equally 
pained by an overdose of alcohol, but the elder has the best 
recollection of the pain, while the younger has the farther 
disadvantage of a keener present delight. Yet, when the 
natural endowment favours the retentiveness of pain and plea- 
sure, we shall find youth temperate, and age a victim to pre- 
sent allurement. In this class of examples, the conditions are 
various and often perplexing. Suppose the case of a thief by 
profession, whose prospects in life are infamy and penal ser- 
vitude. There are the following alternative explanations of 
his choice. His mental peculiarities may be assumed to be, 
the usual liking for the common enjoyments of life ; an aver- 
sion to industry ; a small ideal estimate of the yet unexperi- 
enced pains of punishment ; and perhaps, also, a sanguine 
temperament that under-estimates the probabilities of capture. 
Suppose him to pass through a first imprisonment. A new 



358 CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. 

and powerful motive is now introduced, an ideal repugnance, 
which ought to have great strength, if the punishment has 
told upon him. Should he not be reformed by the experience, 
we must assume the motives already stated at a still higher 
figure. We must also suppose, what is probably true of the 
criminal class generally, a low retentiveness for good and 
evil — the analytic expression of Imprudence; perhaps the 
most radically incurable of all natural defects. 

The theory of Prison Discipline is based on such con- 
siderations as the following. In short imprisonments, the 
pains should be acute, so as to abide in the memory, and en- 
gender an intense repugnance. Loss of liberty, solitude and 
seclusion, regular work, and unstimulating food can be borne, 
for a short period, if there is little sense of the indignity and 
shame of going to jail. A brief confinement is the mild cor- 
rective suited to a first offence ; which failing, there is needed 
an advance in severity. Recourse should next be had to the 
acute inflictions ; which are principally whipping and mus- 
cular pains. The muscular pains are administered in various 
forms ; as the tread wheel, the crank, extra drill, shot drill, 
and a newly devised punishment, introduced into the Scotch 
prisons, and said to be very deterring — the guard bed. With 
a view to increase the impressiveness of these severe applica- 
tions, they should not be continued daily, but remitted for a 
few days ; the mind having leisure in the interval to contem- 
plate alike the past and the future, while the body is refreshed 
for the new infliction. 

Long imprisonment and penal servitude are made deterring 
chiefly through the deprivation of liberty ; to which are added, 
the withdrawing of the subject from the means of crime, and 
the inuring to a life of labour. Perhaps the defect of the 
system is the too even tenor of life, which does not impress 
the imagination of the depraved class with sufficient force. 
Occasional acute inflictions, would very much deepen the 
salutary dread of the condition ; and are not uncalled for in 
the case of hardened criminals. The convict's yearly or half- 
yearly anti-holiday, would impart additional horror and gloom 
to his solitary reflections, and might have a greater influence 
on the minds of the beginners in crime. 

6. The Intermediate Ends — Money, Health, Know- 
ledge, Power, Society, Justice, &c. — enter, as motives, 
into conflict with the ultimate ends, Actual or Ideal, and 
with one another. 



MOTIVE FORCE OF INTERMEDIATE ENDS. 359 

It has been seen what circumstances govern the motive 
force of the intermediate ends ; the value of the ultimate plea- 
sures and pains involved being only one, although the pro- 
perly rational, estimate of their worth. These ends have all 
a certain motive power in every intelligent mind, sometimes 
too little and sometimes too great. When present ease and 
gratification is confronted with prospective wealth, or know- 
ledge, or position, we see which is the stronger. Great relish 
for actual ease and pleasure ; great repugnance to money-get- 
ting exertion ; a feeble memory for the pleasures that money 
can purchase, or the pains it can relieve ; the absence of 
occasions of fear and solicitude in connexion with penury ; no 
affectionate interest contracted with wealth, through the pur- 
suit of it — would constitute a character too little moved to 
the acquisition of money fortune, as a reversed state of the 
motives might lead to an excessive pursuit. 

It is a rule, easily explicable on the principles laid down, 
that intermediate ends, — Wealth, Health, Knowledge, &c. — 
are too weak in early life, while in advancing years, they be- 
come too strong, in fact superseding the final ends. One 
reason of this last effect is that the ultimate pleasures of 
sense count for less in later life, while ideal gratifications, 
original or acquired, count for more ; money and knowledge, 
having contracted a factitious interest of the ideal kind, 
are still sought for that, when the primary interests have 
ceased ; and the more so, that the active pursuit in their 
service, has become a habit, and a necessity. 

7. The Persistence of Ideas, through emotional excite- 
ment, counts in the conflict of Motives, and constitutes a 
class of Impassioned or Exaggerated Ends, 

Undue persistence of ideas is most strongly exemplified in 
Fear. Any evil consequence that has been able to rouse our 
alarms, acquires an excessive fixity of tenure, and overweighs 
in the conflict of motives. This has been seen to be one of 
the exaggerating conditions of avarice. So, from having 
been a witness of revolutions, a susceptible mind takes on a 
morbid dread of anarchy and a revulsion to change. The 
care of health may assume the character of a morbid 
fixed idea, curtailing liberty and enjoyment to an absurd 
degree. The apprehensions of maternal feeling are apt to be 
exaggerated. 

Vanity, Dignity, love of Power, are often found in the im- 
passioned form, in weak minds. The extreme case of the fixed 



360 DELIBERATION. — RESOLUTION. — EFFORT. 

idea in general, and of the morbid predominance of these 
ideas in particular, occurs in the insane. 

Sympathy, in its pure and fundamental character, is the 
possession of an idea, followed out irrespective of pleasure or 
pain, although these are more or less attached to its usual 
exercise. In the conflict of motives, this principle of action 
plays an important part ; its predominance is the foremost 
motive to virtuous conduct. It subsists upon a vivid percep- 
tion of the pain or misery of others ; a perception more or 
less acute by nature or by education, and susceptible of being 
inflamed by oratory. The sympathies of individuals are gene- 
rally partial or select ; powerful to some modes of misery and 
inert to others. The conflicts of sympathy are with the purely 
egotistic pleasures of each individual ; these last, when un- 
naturally strong, as in the child, are unequally met by the 
sympathetic impulses. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

DELIBEEATION.— EESOLUTION.— EFFOET. 

1. In the prolonged weighing of motives, termed 
Deliberation, the suspense is a voluntary act, prompted 
by the remembered pains of acting too quickly. 

Among our painful experiences, is the evil effect of acting 
hastily on the first motive that arises. At an early stage of 
education, we gratify hunger with whatever looks like food ; 
we give to him that asketh, and believe whatever any one 
tells us. After a little time, we discover that the fruit of such 
impulses is often bad; that other motives, such as might 
change our conduct, would arise to our minds if we refrained 
from immediate action, and gave time to the intellect to 
suggest them. A deterring motive of the Intermediate class 
is thus created, and at its instigation, we fall into the attitude 
called Deliberation, which consists in pausing, waiting, ru- 
minating, till other considerations rise to the view, and are 
confronted with one another, and with the first impulse. 

We have, in this case, a conflict between some present 
impulse, some pleasure or pain, actual or ideal, that has risen 
before the mind, and the highly intellectual or ideal pain con- 



EVIL OF PRECIPITATE ACTION. 361 

stituted by former experience of the pains of immediately 
giving way to a motive stimulus. The deliberating impulse 
is the creature of education, growing with repeated examples 
of mischief, and at last triumphant in all conflicts with hasty 
promptings. 

The same experience that induces delay, to give time for 
all the motives that arise, farther urges us not to protract the 
suspense too long. We know what amount of deliberation 
will ordinarily suffice to get out both sides of a case ; to allow 
less and to allow more are mischievous, and the prospect of 
the mischief deters from the one and from the other. Most 
people defer answering an important letter, for at least one 
day; perhaps the case is so complicated that more time is 
required; which being given, the evils of protracting the 
decision come into play ; action then ensues on the side where 
strength of impulse prevails. 

Another source of evil is the undue impressiveness of the 
motive last suggested. Every consideration occurring to the 
mind is strongest at the moment of being first presented ; if 
we act at that moment, we are apt to give too much weight to 
the new and too little to the old. Aware, by experience, of this 
danger also, we hold back till every motive has cooled down, 
as it were, from the first heat, and until all are nearly on an 
equal footing. In proportion as we are impressed, by experi- 
ence, with this evil, does it abide with us, as a deterring 
motive, leading to voluntary suspense. A sudden thought, 
bursting on the view, has something of the dangerous pre- 
dominance of an actual pleasure or pain; we are, however, 
taught the painful consequences thence arising; and if our 
memory for evil is adequate and just, we bridle in the mis- 
taken activity that we are impelled to. 

When opposing motives are numerous, it is a matter of 
real difficulty for the coolest mind to estimate them correctly. 
As an artificial help in such an emergency, Franklin, in a 
letter to Priestley, recommends the writing them down in two 
columns, so as to balance them piecemeal. When one, on one 
side, is felt to be about equal to one or two on the other, these 
are struck out, the complication being to that extent lessened. 
The repetition of this neutralizing and deleting process leaves 
the opposing sides at last so much reduced, that the comparison 
is safe and easy. 

Another artificial precaution of some value in deliberating 
on a complicated matter, consists in keeping the deliberation 
open for a length of time, say a month, and recording the im- 



362 DELIBERATION. — RESOLUTION. — EFFORT. 

pression of every day. At tlie end of the time, the decisions 
on each side being summed up, the majority would testify, in 
all probability, to the strongest on the whole. The lapse of 
time would allow all considerations within our reach to come 
forward and have their weight, while the matter would be 
viewed under a considerable variety of circumstances and of 
mental temper. 

A farther difficulty also suggested to the man of experi- 
ence and reflection, and influencing the deliberative process, 
is the inability to judge of untried situations. What one has 
gone through needs only to be fairly remembered - r but what 
is absolutely strange demands a careful constructive operation. 
Although the young cannot be made to see this, it comes home 
to advancing years. The sense of the resulting mistakes is a 
prompting of the nature of Ideal pain, to take the precau- 
tions of interrogating others, and referring to our own experi- 
ence in the situations most nearly analogous. Choosing a 
profession, entering into a partnership, emigrating to another 
country, contracting the matrimonial tie, are all more or less 
haphazard in their consequences ; they are less so, according 
as the individual has been taught by good and ill fortune how 
to deliberate. 

2. The Deliberative process is in conformity with the 
theory of the Will, contained in the previous chapters. 

In Deliberation, there is no suspension of the action of 
motives, but merely the addition of a new motive, the ideal 
evil of hasty action. Every pleasure or pain bearing on the 
occasion has its full weight, in accordance with the circum- 
stances already described ; and the action is always strictly 
the result of the total of motives. 

It is in the deliberative situation that we are supposed to 
exert that mysterious power called the ' freedom ' of the willy 
4 free choice,' * moral liberty/ The only real fact underlying 
these expressions is the circumstance that we seldom act out 
a present motive. One may feel hunger, but may not follow 
out the prompting on the instant. Each human being has a 
large reserve, a permanent stock of motive power, being the 
totalized ends of life ; a total that operates along with every 
actual stimulation, and quashes a great many passing motives. 
This reservoir of ideal ends is sometimes spoken of as the 
'self or 'ego' of the individual, the grand controlling prin- 
ciple ; when it has full course we are said to be ' free ; - when 
it is baffled by some transitory impulse or passion, we are said 



DELIBERATION AND FREE WILL. 363 

to be 6 enslaved.' Now, Deliberation has the effect of bringing 
us under the sway of our interests on the whole, but does not 
thereby make us act without a motive. There is no interven- 
ing entity to determine whether the motive shall bring forth 
the act; a motive may be arrested, but only through the 
might of a stronger. 

In metaphysical theory, it is often taken for granted that 
deliberation, or choice, is the type, representative, or essential 
feature of the Will. This is not the fact. The most general and 
essential attribute of the will, is to act at once on a motive, as 
when one seeks shelter from a shower ; it is an exception, 
although of frequent occurrence, to stop and deliberate, that 
is, to suspend action, until an intellectual process has time 
given to it, to bring forward ideal motives which may possibly 
conflict with the actual, and change the result. 

3. When the action suggested oj a motive, or a con- 
currence of motives, cannot immediately commence, the 
intervening attitude is called Resolution. 

Besides the deliberate suspense, necessary for avoiding 
the known evils of precipitate volition, there may be a farther 
arrest of action. Many of our voluntary decisions are come 
to, before the time for acting commences. We deliberate 
to-day, what shall be done to-morrow, or next week r or next 
year. A name is required to indicate this situation of having 
ceased to deliberate without having begun to act. We call it 
Resolution. If action followed at once on motive, there 
would be neither Deliberation nor Resolution ; if it followed 
after such adequate comparison and balancing of motives r as 
experience testifies to be enough for precaution against haste, 
there would be no Resolution. 

The state thus denominated is not a state of absolute 
quiescence or indifference. There is an activity engendered at 
once, the preliminary to the proper action ; an attitude of 
waiting and watching the time and circumstances for com- 
mencing the course decreed. We are moved by health and 
pleasure to contrive a holiday ; we know that to rush off at 
once under these very strong motives would probably entail 
misery. We suspend and deliberate ; after allowing sufficient 
space for all motives to assemble and be heard, the result is 
in favour of the first suggestion. The interval that still 
divides us from the actual movement, is the interval of 
resolution, or preliminary volition. 

In the state of resolution, we are liable to changes of 



364 DELIBERATION. — RESOLUTION. — EFFORT. 

motive, inducing ns to abandon the course resolved on. We 
have not, perhaps, at the time of ceasing to deliberate, had 
the motives fully before us ; we may not have counted 
sufficiently with the toil and opposition and inconveniences 
that we should encounter, all which may come to the view 
afterwards, and reverse our decision. Hence we often 
abandon our resolutions either before action commences, or 
after commencing and grappling with the real difficulties. 
All this only shows that the deliberative process had been 
too hurriedly concluded. Irresolution is a sign either of 
want of deliberation, or of undue susceptibility to a pre- 
sent and actual motive. The resolute man is he that, in 
the first place, allows an ample deliberative suspense, and, 
in the second place, is under the power of the permanent 
or ideal motives, which is what we mean by steadiness of 
purpose. 

We make resolutions for our whole lives, which neces- 
sarily run many risks of being broken. It is not merely 
through insufficient deliberation and infirmity of purpose, 
that we depart from such resolutions, but also from the 
occurrence of new motives, better insight, and altered 
circumstances. 

We exist from day to day under a host of resolutions. 
Few of our actions are either pro re nata, or the result of a 
deliberation at once executed. We go forth every morning 
to fulfil ' engagements,' that is, carry out resolutions. The 
creature of impulse is he that does not retain the permanent 
motives embodied in his engagements or resolutions, but 
gives way to the spur of the occasion, as when the boy sent 
on an errand, loiters to play marbles. 

For the same reason as above stated, with regard to 
deliberation, namely, familiarity of occurrence, we are apt to 
consider resolution as, not an incident, but an essential of 
the Will, In both cases, it is the fallacia accidentia, setting 
up an occasional property as the main property of a thing. 
The typical will neither deliberates nor resolves, but passes, 
without interval, from a motive state to an action. The 
superior intelligence of the higher beings induces upon this 
primitive link a series of artificial suspenses, not exceptions 
to the general law of the will, but complications of it ; and 
the complicated modes are so common, and moreover so 
prominent and noticeable, that we fancy at last, that they are 
necessary to the very existence — a part, if not the whole 
essence, of will 



EFFORT NOT ESSENTIAL TO THE WILL. 365 

4. If, with a strong motive, there is weakness or 
insufficiency of the active organs, we have the peculiar 
consciousness, named Effort. 

When we are moved to an exertion that we are fully equal 
to, we have a muscular feeling that is pleasurable or else in- 
different ; in either case, we say that the act costs no effort. 
As we approach the limits of our strength, the feeling 
gradually inclines to pain. The interval between easy per- 
formance and total inability, is marked by the presence of 
this familiar experience ; the greater the pain, the greater is 
said to be the effort. As all pain is a motive to desist from 
whatever exercise is causing it, we should not continue to 
act, but for the pressure of some still stronger motive. In 
such cases, there is the necessity for an increasing stimulus, 
as the pain of the action increases. The state of effort, 
therefore, may be described as a muscular pain joined to the 
pain of a conflict of motives. On occasion of excessive 
exercise, and during spasm, we may have the organic pain of 
muscle besides. 

5. The consciousness of Effort, like Deliberation and 
Resolution, is an accident, and not an essential, of the 
Will. 

It is the nature of a voluntary act to be accompanied with 
consciousness. The feeling that constitutes the motive is one 
form ; to which is added the consciousness of active exertion, 
which varies with the condition of the organs as compared 
with the demand made upon them. ; one of its phases being 
the state of effort. We are not entitled to include, in the 
essence of Will, the consciousness of Effort, any more than 
we can include the delight of exercise when the organs are 
fresh.* 

* It has "been maintained (Herschell's Astronomy, chap, viii.), that 
the consciousness of effort accompanying voluntary action is the proof 
that mind is the real source of voluntary power, and, by analogy, the 
source of all the powers of nature — as gravity and all other prime movers. 
This doctrine is liable to very strong objections. 

First, As now stated, the consciousness of effort does not accompany 
all voluntary actions, but only that class where the active power is not 
fuUy equal to the work. 

Secondly, Although some kind of consciousness accompanies volun- 
tary power, there are also present a series of physical changes, and a 
physical expenditure, corresponding in amount to the work to be done. 
A certain amount of food, digested, assimilated, and consumed, is de- 
manded for every voluntary exertion, and in greater quantity as the 
exertion is greater. In a deficiency of food, or in an exhausted condition 



366 DESIRE. 



CHAPTEE VIL 
DESIEE. 

1. Desire Is the state of mind where there Is a motive 
to act — some pleasure or pain ? actual or ideal — without 
the ability. It is thus another of the states of interval, or 
suspense, between motive and execution. 

When a pleasure prompts us to work for its continuance 
or increase, and when we at once follow the prompting, there 
is no place for desire. So with pain. Going out into the 
open air, we encounter a painful chill ; we turn back and put 
on extra clothing; the pain has induced a remedy by the 
primordial stimulus of the will, guided by our acquired apti- 
tudes. Walking at a distance from home, the air suddenly 
cools to the chilling point. We have no remedy at hand. 
The condition thus arising, a motive without the power of 
acting, is Desire. 

2. In Desire, there is the presence of some motive, a 
pleasure or a pain, and a state of conflict, in itself painful. 

The motive may be some present pleasure, which urges to 
action for its continuance or increase. It may be some plea- 
sure conceived in idea, with a prompting to attain it in the 
reality, as the pleasure of a summer tour. It may be a pre- 
sent pain moving us to obtain mitigation or relief; or a 

of the active members, the most intense consciousness, whether of effort 
or any other mode, is unable to bring forth voluntary or mechanical 
energy. With abundance of food, and good material conditions of the 
system, force wiU be exerted with or without the antecedent of con- 
sciousness. 

Thirdly, The animal frame is the constant theatre of mechanical 
movements that are entirely withdrawn from consciousness. Such are 
the movements of the lungs, the heart, and the intestines ; these the 
consciousness neither helps nor retards. 

Fourthly, When voluntary actions become habitual, they are less and 
less associated with consciousness : approaching to the condition of the 
reflex or automatic actions last noticed. 

Thus, whenever mind is a source of power, it is in conjunction with a 
material expenditure, such as would give rise to mechanical or other 
energy without the concurrence of mind ; while, of the animal forces 
themselves, a considerable portion is entirely dissociated from mind or 
consciousness. 



CONTENTMENT. 367 

pending but future pain, ideally conceived, wifch a spur to pre- 
vent its becoming actual. So far as the motive itself is con- 
cerned, we may be under either pleasure or pain. But in so far 
as there is inability to obey the dictates of the motive, there is 
a pain of the nature of conflict ; which must attach to every 
form of desire, although in certain cases neutralized by plea- 
surable accompaniments. 

3. There are various modes of escape from the con- 
flict, and unrest, of Desire. 

The first is forced quiescence ; to which are given the 
familiar names — endurance, resignation, fortitude, patience, 
contentment. 

This is a voluntary exertion prompted by the pain of the 
conflict. It means the putting forth of a volition to restrain 
the motive force of desire, to deprive the state of its volitional 
urgency. If the motive is a present pleasure, the will can 
oppose the urgency to add to it, and so bring on the condition 
of serene and satisfying enjoyments ; if a present pain, the 
restraint of the motive urgency ends in the state called en- 
durance, patienee, resignation; a remarkable form of con- 
sciousness, where pain, by a neutralizing volition, is reduced 
to the state of a feeling possessed of only emotional and in- 
tellectual characteristics. 

The self-restraint, implied under endurance, coerces all 
the movements and inward springs of movement, that, but 
for such coercion, would be exerted with a view to relief, even 
although fruitless. The same volition may likewise suppress 
the diffusive manifestations and gesticulative outburst of strong 
feeling. Both are comprised in the renowned endurance of 
the old Spartan, or of the Indian under torture. As a remedial 
operation, such a vigorous suppressive effort., in the case of 
physical pain, can directly do little but save the muscular 
organs from exhaustion ; indirectly it will stamp the pain on 
the memory by leaving the present consciousness to taste its 
utmost bitterness ; so that the present endurance in that form 
may be favourable to future precaution. When the pain is 
ideal or imaginary, or the result of artificial stimulation, as 
when one frets at not having the good fortune of others 
around, the forced quiescence eventually works a cure. Also, 
in the case of pleasure craving for increase, the suppressive 
volition is of admirable efficacy ; it takes away the marring 
ingredient from a real delight;, which is then enjoyed in purity. 
In these two last instances, we can understand the value of 



368 DESIRE. 

contentment, a forced state of mind prompted by the conflict 
of desire, and, by repetition, confirmed into a habitual frame 
of mind, favourable to happiness. 

Seeing" that Desire may be viewed as so much pain, we may, 
as in the case of any other pain, assuage it by the application of 
pleasure. When children are seized with longings that cannot be 
gratified, they may be soothed by something agreeable. They 
may also be deterred from pursuing the vain illusion by the threat 
of pain. 

Another resource common to desire with other pains, is a 
diversion of the thoughts, by some new object ; a mode especially 
applicable to the ideal pains, and vain illusions of unbridled fancy. 
Change of scene, of circumstances, of companions, if not disagree- 
able, can effect a diversion of morbid intellectual trains, by intel- 
lectual forces. 

4. A second outlet for Desire is ideal or imaginary 
action. 

If we are prevented from acting under the stimulus of our 
feelings, we may at least indulge in ideal acting. One con- 
fined to bed desires to be abroad with the crowd, and, unable 
to realize the fact, resorts, in imagination, to favourite haunts 
and pursuits. There is in such an exercise a certain amount 
of ideal gratification, which, in peculiar and assignable circum- 
stances, may partly atone for the want of the actual. 

With the bodily pains and pleasures, imagined activity 
entirely fails. The setting out in thought on the search of 
food is nothing to the hungry man ; the idea of breaking out 
of prison must often occur to the immured convict, but 
without alleviating the misery of confinement. 

It is different with the higher senses and emotions, whose 
ideal persistence is so great as to approximate to the grateful 
tone of the reality. We may have a desire to visit or re-visit 
Switzerland; being prohibited from the reality, we may 
indulge in an ideal tour, which is not altogether devoid of 
satisfaction. If we are helped, in the effort of conception, by 
some vivid describer of the scenes and the life of the country, 
the imagined journey will give us considerable pleasure. The 
gratification afforded by the literature of imagination testifies 
to the possibility of such a mode of delight. There would 
still survive a certain amount of desire, from the known 
inferiority of the imagined to the real ; but a discipline of 
suppression might overcome that remaining conflict, and 
leave us in the possession of whatever enjoyment could spring 
from ideal scenes and activity. 



DESIRE LEADS TO IDEAL ACTION. 369 

In this way, pleasing sights and sounds, forbidden to the 
senses, may still have a charm in imagination ; and the ideal 
pursuit of them would enhance the pleasure. Still more are 
the pleasures of affection, complacency, power, revenge, know- 
ledge, fit to be the subject of ideal longings and pursuit. 
These emotions can all be to some extent indulged in absence, 
so as to make us feel something of their warmth and elation. 
It is not in vain, therefore, that we sustain an ideal pursuit 
in favour of some object of love, some future of renown, some 
goal of accomplishment, some inaccessible height of moral 
excellence. The day-dreamer, whose ideal emotions are well 
supported, by the means formerly described, has moments of 
great enjoyment, although still liable to the pains of conflict, 
and to the equally painful exhaustion following on ideal 
excitement. 

If a pleasure iu memory or in imagination were as good 
as the reality, there would be no pursuit either actual or 
ideal, and no desire. Or if the reality had some painful 
experiences enough to do away with the superiority of the 
actual, we should be free from the urgency of motives to the 
will. Many occasions of pleasure exemplify one or other of 
these two positions; evenings in society, public entertain- 
ments, dignified pursuits, and the like. We may have a 
pleasure in thinking of places where we have formerly been, 
with a total absence of desire to return. 

The spur of an ideal pleasure consists, partly in the 
perennial tendency of pleasure to seek for increase, and 
partly in the pain arising from a consciousness of the in- 
feriority of the ideal to the actual. This pain is at its 
maximum in regard to the pleasures of organic life and of 
the inferior senses ; and at its minimum in the pleasures 
termed elevating and refined. 

5. The Provocatives of Desire are, in the first place, 
the actual wants or deficiencies of the system, and secondly, 
the experience of pleasure. 

The first class correspond with the Appetites, and with 
those artificial cravings of the system generated by physical 
habits. We pass through a round of natural wants, for food, 
exercise, &c, and when each finds its gratification at hand, 
there is no room for desire. An interval or delay brings on 
the state of craving or longing, with the alternative outlets 
now described. 

If we set aside the Appetites, the main provocative of 
24 



370 DESIRE. 

Desire is the experience of pleasure. When any pleasure has 
once been tasted, the recollection is afterwards a motive to 
regain it. The infant has no craving but for the breast; 
desire conies in with new pleasures. It is from enjoying 
the actual, that we come to desire the pleasures of sound, of 
spectacle, and of all the higher emotions. Sexuality is 
founded on an appetite, but the other pleasing emotions are 
brought, by a course of experience, to the longing pitch. In- 
tense as is the feeling of maternity, no animal or human being 
preconceives it. The emotions of wonder, of complacency, 
of ambition, of revenge, of curiosity, of fine art, must be 
gratified in order to be evoked as permanent longings. Ex- 
perience is necessary to temptation in this class of delights. 
A being solitary from birth would have no craving for society. 

Even as regards Appetite, experience gives a definite aim 
to the longings, directing them upon the objects known as the 
means of their gratification. We crave for certain things 
that have always satisfied hunger, and for a known place 
suited to repose. This easy transition, effected by association, 
misled Butler into supposing that our appetites are not selfish ; 
they do not go direct to the removal of pain and the bestowal 
of pleasure, but centre in a number of special objects. 

A higher complication arises when we contemplate the 
appearances of enjoyment in others, and are led to crave for 
participation. We must still have a basis of personal know- 
ledge ; but when out of a very narrow experience of the good 
things of life, we venture to conceive the happiness of the 
children of fortune, our estimate is likely to be erroneous, and 
to be biassed by the feelings that control the imagination. 
How this bias works, is explained by the analysis of the ideal 
or imaginative faculty (Book II., chap, iv., § 15). 

6. As all our pleasures and pains have the volitional 
property, that is, incite to action, so they all give birth to 
desire ; from which circumstance, some feelings carry the 
fact of Desire in. their names. Such are Avarice, Ambition, 
Curiosity. 

This has very generally led to the including of Desire, as 
a phenomenon, in the classification of the feelings. In every 
desire, there is a pleasure or pain, but the fact itself is pro- 
perly an aspect of volition or the Will. 

7. As in actual volition, so in Desire, we may have the 
disturbing effect of the Fixed Idea. 



PESIKE NOT NECESSAKY TO VOLITION. 371 

Nothing is more common than a persistent idea giving 
origin to the conflicts, and the day dreams, and all the out- 
goings of Desire. The examples already given of the fixed 
idea in the motives of the will, have their prolongation and 
expansion in ideal longings, when pursuit is impossible. Such 
are the day-dreams of wealth, ambition, affection, future 
happiness. 

8. Desire is incorrectly represented as a constant and 
necessary prelude of volition. 

Like Deliberation and Resolution, the state of Desire has 
now been shown to be a transformation of the will proper, 
undergone in circumstances where the act does not imme- 
diately follow the motive. There remains a farther example 
of the same peculiarity, forming the subject of the next 
chapter. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
BELIEF. 

1. The mental state termed Belief, while involving 
the Intellect and the Feelings, is, in its essential import, 
related to Activity, or the Will. 

In believing that the sun will rise to-morrow, that next 
winter will be cold, that alcohol stimulates, that such a one is 
to be trusted, that Turkey is ill-governed, that free trade in- 
creases the wealth of nations, that human life is full of 
vicissitudes, — in what state of mind are we ? a state purely 
intellectual, or intellectual and something besides ? In all 
these affirmations there is an intellectual conception, but so 
there is in many things that we do not believe. We may 
understand the meaning of a proposition, we may conceive it 
with the utmost vividness, and yet not believe it. We may 
have an exact intellectual comprehension of the statement that 
the moon is only one hundred miles distant from the earth ; 
but without any accompanying belief. 

It is next to be seen, if a feeling, or emotion, added to the 
intellectual conception, will amount to the believing state. 
Suppose us to conceive and contemplate the approaching sum- 



372 BELIEF. 

mer as beautiful and genial beyond all the summers of the 
century, we should have much pleasure in this contemplation, 
but the pleasure (although, as will be seen, a predisposing cause) 
does not constitute the belief. There is, thus, nothing either 
in Intellect or in Feeling, to impart the essence of Belief. 

In the practice of every day life, we are accustomed to test 
men's belief by action, 'faith by works.' If a politician 
declares free trade to be good, and yet will not allow it to be 
acted on (there being no extraneous barriers in the way), 
people say he does not believe his own assertion. A general 
affirming that he was stronger and better entrenched than the 
enemy, and yet acting as if he were weaker, would be held as 
believing not what he affirmed, but what he acted on. A 
capitalist that withdraws his money from foreign governments, 
and invests it at a smaller interest in the English funds, is 
treated as having lost faith or confidence in the stability of the 
foreign powers. Any one pretending to believe in a future 
life of rewards and punishments, and acting precisely as if 
there were no such life, is justly set down as destitute of belief 
in the doctrine. 

2. The relation of Belief to Activity is expressed by 
saying, that what we believe we act upon. 

The instances above given, point to this and to no other 
conclusion. The difference between mere conceiving or imagin- 
ing, with or without strong feeling, and belief, is acting, or 
being prepared to act, when the occasion arises. The belief 
that a sovereign is worth twenty shillings, is shown by the 
readiness to take the sovereign in exchange for the shillings ; 
the belief that a sovereign is light is shown by refusing to 
take it as the equivalent of twenty shillings. 

The definition will be best elucidated by the apparent ex- 
ceptions. 

(1) We often have a genuine belief, and yet do not act 
upon it. One may have the conviction strongly that absti- 
nence from stimulants would favour health and happiness, and 
yet go on taking stimulants. And there are many parallels 
in the conduct of human beings. The case, however, is no 
real exception. Belief is a motive, or an inducement to act, 
but it may be overpowered by a stronger motive — a present 
pleasure, or relief from a present pain. We are inclined to 
act where we believe, but not always with an omnipotent 
strength of impulse. Belief is an active state, with different 
degrees of force ; it is said to be strong or to be weak. It is 



BELIEF GROUNDED IN ACTION. 373 

strong when it carries us against a powerful counter impulse, 
weak when overpowered by an impulse not strong. Yet if it 
ever induces us to act at all, if it vanquishes the smallest re- 
sistance, it is belief. The believer in a future life may do very 
little in consequence of that belief; he may never act in the 
face of a strong opposition; but if he does anything at all that 
he would not otherwise do, if he incurs the smallest present 
sacrifice, he is admitted to have a real, though feeble, belief. 

(2) The second apparent exception is furnished by the 
cases where we believe things that we never can have any 
occasion to act upon. Some philosophers of the present day 
believe that the sun is radiating away his heat, and will in 
some inconceivably long period cool down far below zero of 
Fahrenheit. Any fact more completely out of the active 
sphere of those philosophers could not be suggested to the 
human mind. It is the same with the alleged past history of 
the universe, sidereal and geological. An astronomer has 
many decided convictions in connexion with the remote 
nebulae of the firmament. Even the long past events of 
human history, the exploits of Epaminondas, and the invasion 
of Britain by the Romans, are beyond our sphere of action, 
and are yet believed by us. And as regards the still existing 
arrangements of things, many men that will never cross the 
Sahara desert, believe what is told of its surface, of its burning 
days and chilling nights. 

It is not hard to trace a reference to action in every one 
of these beliefs. Take the last-named first. When we believe 
the testimony of travellers as to the Sahara, we view that tes- 
timony as the same in kind with what we are accustomed to 
act upon. A traveller in Africa has also passed through 
France, and has perhaps told us many things respecting that 
country, and we have acted on his information. He has also 
told us of Sahara, and we have fallen into the same mental 
attitude in this case, although we may not have the same occa- 
sion to act it out. We express the attitude by saying, that if 
we went to Africa, we would do certain things in consequence 
of the information. 

As regards the past, we believe history in two ways. The 
first use is analogous to what has been stated, namely, when we 
put the testimony to historical events on the same footing as the 
testimony that we now act upon. Another way, is when we 
form theories or doctrines of human affairs, reposing in part 
on those past events, and carry these doctrines into operation 
in our present practice. 



374 BELIEF. 



The belief in sidereal phenomena immeasurably remote in 
space and in time, is a recognition of the scientific method em- 
ployed upon these phenomena. The navigator sails the seas 
upon the faith of observations of the same nature as those 
applied to the distant stars and nebulse. If an astronomer 
propounded doctrines as to the nebulae, founded upon obser- 
vations of a kind that would not be trusted in navigation or 
in the prediction of eclipses, we should be in a perceptibly 
different state of mind respecting such doctrines, and that 
state of mind is not improperly styled disbelief. 

(3) In many notorious instances our belief is determined 
by the strength of our feelings, which may be alleged as a 
proof that it is grounded on the emotional part of our nature. 
The fact is admitted, but not the inference. It will be after- 
wards seen in what ways the feelings operate upon the belief, 
without themselves constituting the state of believing. 

(4) Very frequently, belief is engendered by a purely in- 
tellectual process. Thus, when a proposition in geometry is 
first propounded to us, we may understand its purport with- 
out believing it ; but, by going through a chain of reasoning 
or demonstration, an operation wholly of the intellect, we pass 
into a state of entire conviction. So with the thousands of 
cases where we are led into belief by mere argument, proof, or 
intellectual enlightenment ; in all which, there is the appear- 
ance of an intellectual origin of belief. 

The same conclusion is suggested by another set of facts, 
namely, our believing from the testimony of our senses, or 
personal experience ; for perception by the senses is admitted 
to be a function of the intellect. It is by such an operation 
that we believe in gravity, in the connexion of sunrise with 
light and heat, and so on. 

So, when we receive and adjudicate on the testimony of 
others, we are performing a function strictly intellectual. 

Led seemingly by such facts as these, metaphysicians 
have been almost, if not altogether, unanimous in enrolling 
Belief among the intellectual powers. Nevertheless, it may 
be affirmed, that intellect alone will not constitute Belief, any 
more than it will constitute Volition. The reasonings of the 
Geometer do not create the state of belief, they merely bring 
affirmations under an already- formed belief, the belief in the 
axioms of the science. Unless that belief can be shown to be 
an intellectual product, the faith in demonstrative truth is not 
based in intellect. The precise function of our intelligence in 
believing will be shown in what follows. 



BELIEF SUPPOSES INTEEMEDIATE ACTIONS. 375 

3. Belief is a growth or development of the Will, under 
the pursuit of intermediate ends. 

When a voluntary action at once brings a pleasure or dis- 
misses a pain, as in masticating food in the mouth, we expe- 
rience the primitive course of the will ; there is an absence 
alike of deliberation, of resolution, of desire, and of belief. 
By a fiction, one might maintain that we are believing that 
the mouthful of food is pleasant, just as one might say that we 
choose,, desire, and resolve to masticate and swallow the bolus ; 
but in point of fact, such designations would never have come 
into existence had all volition been of this primordial type. 
It is the occurrence of a middle or intermediate state between 
the motive and the felt gratification that makes these various 
phases to appear. 

Belief is shown when we are performing intermediate or 
associated actions. When we put forth the hand to seize an 
orange, peel it, and bring it to the mouth, we perform a num- 
ber of actions, in themselves barren and unprofitable, and 
stimulated by a pleasure to follow ? which pleasure at present 
exists as the ideal motive. In this situation, there is a fact 
or phenomenon, not expressed by any of the other names for 
what fills the void of a suspended volition ; there may be pre- 
sent deliberation, resolution, and desire ; yet something still 
remains. For example, in taking these steps to enjoy the 
sweetness of the orange juices, we may have passed through 
the phase of Desire ; previous experience of the pleasure has 
given us an idea of it, accompanied by longing for perfect 
fruition. We may also have passed through a Deliberation 
and a Resolution. But what is not yet expressed, is our assum- 
ing that the actions now entered on will bring the state 
desired, and our maintaining a degree of voluntary exertion as 
energetic as if the pleasure were actually tasted. When we 
act for an intermediate end, as strongly as we should for the 
actual end, we are in a very peculiar situation, not implied in 
desire, however strong, nor in deliberation, nor in resolution, 
and deserving to be signalized by a name. The principal 
designation is Belief; the synonymes are faith, trust, credit, 
credence, confidence, assurance, security, reliance, certainty, 
dependence, anticipation, expectation. 

The state is known to vary in degree. Having formed a 
desire, and having, if need be, deliberated and resolved, we 
may pursue the intermediate ends, either with all the energy 
that the ultimate consciousness would prompt, or, what is very 



376 BELIEF. 

common, with less than that energy ; perhaps with three- 
fourths, with one-half, or with one-fourth the amount. This 
difference need have no connexion with the intensity of desire, 
or with the processes of deliberation or of resolution ; it re- 
lates to a fact that has a separate standing in the mind ; and 
the circumstances affecting it call for a special investigation. 

4. Belief always contains an intellectual element ; 
there being, in its least developed form, an Association of 
Means and End. 

The very fact of working for an intermediate end, with the 
view to some remote or final end, implies an intellectual con- 
ception of both, and the association of the one with the other. 
The lamb running to its ewe mother for milk and warmth, 
has an intellectual train fixed in its mind — an idea of warmth 
and repletion associated with the idea or characteristic picture 
of its mother. All the actions of human beings for remote 
ends are based on the mental trains connecting the inter- 
mediate with the final. 

We may properly describe these trains as a knowledge of 
natural facts, or of the order of the world, which all creatures 
that can do one thing for the sake of another, must possess to 
some degree. Every animal with a home, and able to leave 
it and to return, knows a little geography. The more exten- 
sive this knowledge, the greater the power of gaining ends. 
The stag knowing ten different pools to drink from, is so much 
better provided than when it knew but one. 

Experience of nature, therefore, laid up in the memory, 
must enter into every situation where we exert belief. Nay, 
more. Such experience is, properly speaking, the just ground 
of believing, the condition in whose absence there ought to 
be no belief; and the greater the experience, the greater 
should be the believing energy. But if we find, in point of fact, 
that belief does not accord with experience, we must admit 
that there is some other spring of confidence than the natural 
conjunctions or successions, repeated before the view, and 
fixed in the mind by the force of contiguous association. 

5. The mental foundations of Belief are to be sought 
(1) in our Activity, (2) in the Intellectual Associations of 
our Experience, and (3) in the Feelings. 

It is here affirmed, not only that Belief in its essence is 
an active state, but that its' foremost generating cause is the 
Activity of the system, to which are added influences Intel- 
lectual and Emotional. 



ACTION CAKHIES BELIEF TILL WE AKE CHECKED. 377 

(1) The Spontaneity of the moving organs is a sonrce of 
action, the system being fresh, and there being no hindrance. 
Secondly, the additional Pleasure of Exercise is a farther 
prompting to activity. Thirdly, the Memory of this plea- 
sure is a motive to begin acting with a view to the 
fruition of it ; the operation of the will being enlarged by 
an intellectual bond. These three facts sum up the active 
tendency of volition; the two first are impulses of pure 
activity ; the third is supported by the retentive function of 
the intellect. 

Under these forces, one or more, we commence action, 
and, so long as there is no cheek, we continue till overtaken 
by exhaustion. "We have no hesitation, doubt, or uncer- 
tainty ; while yet ignorant of what belief means, we act 
precisely like a person in the highest state of confidence. 
Belief can do no more than produce unhesitating action, and 
we are already placed at this point. 

Suppose now that we experience a check, as when our 
activity brings us pain. This is an arrest upon our present 
movements ; and the memory of it has also a certain deterring 
effect. We do not again proceed in that track with the full 
force of our spontaneous and volitional urgencies ; there is 
an element of repugnance that weakens, if it does not destroy, 
the active tendency. The young animal at first roams every- 
where ; in some one track it falls into a snare, and with 
difficulty escapes ; it avoids that route in future ; but as 
regards all others, it goes on as before. The primitive ten- 
dency to move freely in every direction is here broken in 
upon by a hostile experience ; with respect to which there is 
in future an anticipation of danger, a state of belief in coming 
evil. Repeated experiences would confirm this deviation 
from the rule of immunity; but before any experience, the 
rule was proceeded on. 

We can now understand what there is instinctive in the 
act of believing, and can account for the natural or primitive 
credulity of the mind. The mere disposition to act, growing 
out of our active endowments, carries belief with it; ex- 
perience enlightening the intellect, does not create this active 
disposition, but merely causes it to be increased by the 
memory of attained fruition, A stronger natural spontaneity 
would make a stronger belief, experience remaining the same. 
Whatever course is entered on is believed in, until a check 
arise ; a repeated check neutralizes the spontaneous and 
\ oluntary agency, destroying alike action and belief. 



o 



78 BELIEF. 



The phenomena of credulity and mistaken beliefs are in 
accordance with the active origin of the state*. We strongly 
believe that whatever has been in the past will, always be in 
the future, exactly as we have found it in an unbroken 
experience, however small; that is, we are disposed to act in. 
any direction where we have never been checked. It does 
not need a long-continued iteration, amounting to indis- 
soluble association, to generate a belief: a single instance 
under a motive to act is enough. The infant soon shows a 
belief in the mother's breasts ; and if it could speculate on 
the future, it would believe in being fed in that manner to 
all eternity. The belief begins to be broken through when it 
gets spoon meat ; and the anticipation is now partitioned, 
but still energetic in holding thai the future will resemble the 
past in the precise manner already experienced. 

There is thus generated, from the department of our 
Activity* a tendency,, so wide as to be an important law of the 
mind, to proceed upon any unbroken experience with the 
whole energy of our active nature, and, accordingly,, to believe, 
with a vigour corresponding to our natural activity,, that 
what is uncontradicted is universal and eternal. Experience 
adds the force of habit to the inborn energy,, and hence the 
tenacity of all early beliefs. Human nature everywhere 
believes that its own experience is the measure of all men's 
experience everywhere and in every time. Each one of us 
believes at first that every other person is made, and feels,, 
like ourselves ;. and it takes a long education to abate 
the sweeping generalization,, which in, no one is ever en- 
tirely overcome.. If belief were generated by the growth of 
an intellectual bond of experienced conjunctions, we should 
not form any judgment as to other men's feelings, until old 
enough to perform a difficult scientific operation of analogical 
reasoning ; we should say absolutely nothing about the distant,, 
the past, and the future,* where our experience is null : we 
might believe that the water from a known well slakes our 
thirst, but we should not believe that the same water would 
slake the thirst of other persons who had not tried it, nor 
that any other water would slake our own thirst. It is the 
active energy of the mind, that makes the 'anticipation of 
nature' so severely commented on by Bacon, as the parent 
of all error. This anticipation, corrected and reduced to the 
standard of experience, is the belief in the uniformity of 
nature. 

We labour under a natural inability or disqualification to 



BELIEF PASSES BEYOND EXPEDIENCE, 379 

conceive anything different from our most limited experience ; 
but there is no necessity that we should still persist in 
assuming that what is absolutely unknown ia exactly like what 
we know. Such intrinsic forwardness is not a quality of the 
intellect, it is the incontinence of our active nature. As we 
act first and feel afterwards ; so we believe first and prove 
afterwards ; not to be contradicted is to us sufficient proof. 
The impetus to generalize is born of our activity, and we are 
fortunate if we ever learn to apply to it the corrections of 
subsequent experience. An ordinary person, by no means 
unintelligent or uncultivated, happening to know one French- 
man, would unhesitatingly attribute to the whole French 
nation the mental peculiarities of that one individual. As 
regards many of our convictions, the strength is in the 
inverse ratio of the believer's experience. 

6. (2) The second source of Belief is Intellectual Asso- 
ciation. 

The frequent experience of a succession leaves a firm 
association of the several steps, and the one suggests readily 
all the rest. This enters into belief, and augments in some 
degree the active tendency to proceed in a certain course. 
The successive acts of plucking an apple, putting it in the 
mouth, and chewing it, are followed by an agreeable sensa- 
tion : and the whole train is by repetition firmly fixed in the 
mind. The main source of the energy shown in these inter- 
mediate acts is still the activity — partly spontaneous, partly 
volitional under the ideal motive of the sweetness. Yet the 
facility of passing intellectually from one step to another, 
through the strength of the association, counts as an addition 
to the strength of the impetus that carries us along through 
the series of acts. On a principle already expounded, the 
idea of an act has a certain efficacy in realizing it ; and a 
secure association, bringing on the ideas, would help to bring 
on the actions. It may be safely maintained, however, that no 
mere association of ideas would set the activity in motion, or 
constitute the active disposition, called belief. A very strong 
association between ' apple ' and ' sweetness,' generated by 
hearing the words often joined together (as from the ' dulce 
pomum' of the Latin Grammar), would make the one word 
suggest the other, and the corresponding ideas likewise sug- 
gest each other ; but the taking action upon them still 
requires an active bent of the organs, growing out of the 
causes of our activity — spontaneity and a motive ; and, until 



380 BELIEF. 

these are brought into play, there is no action and no active 
disposition, or belief. 

When we have been disciplined to consult observation and 
experience before making affirmations respecting things dis- 
tant in place or time, instead of generalizing haphazard, we 
import very extensive intellectual operations into the settle- 
ment of our beliefs ; but these intellectual processes do not 
constitute the attitude of believing. They are set agoing by 
motives to the will — by the failures and checks encountered 
in proceeding on too narrow grounds ; and when we have 
attained the improved knowledge, we follow it out into prac- 
tice by virtue of voluntary determinations, whose course has 
been cleared by the higher flight of intelligence ; yet there is 
nothing in mere intellect that would make us act, or contem- 
plate action, and therefore nothing that makes us believe. 

It is illustrative and interesting to note who are the 
decided characters in life — the men prompt and unhesitating 
in action on all occasions. They are men distinguished, not 
for intelligence, but for the active endowment ; a profuse spon- 
taneity lending itself to motives few and strong. Intelligence 
in excess paralyzes action, reducing it in quantity, although no 
doubt improving it in quality — in successful adaptation to ends. 

7. (3) The third source or foundation of Belief is the 
Feelings. 

We have already taken account of the influence of the 
Feelings in generating belief, and we need only to re-state in 
summary the manner of the operation. 

We may first recall the two tests of belief — (1) the energy 
of pursuit of the intermediate ends, the final end not being in 
the grasp, and (2) the elation of mind through the mere pros- 
pect of the final end (when that is something agreeable). In 
both these aspects, belief is affected by feeling. 

If the final end is a pleasure, and strongly realized in idea, 
the energy of pursuit is proportionably strong, and the con- 
viction is strong, as shown by the obstacles surmounted not 
merely in the shape of resistance, but in the shape of total 
want of evidence. An object intensely desired is followed out 
with excessive credulity as to the chances of attainment. 

There is another mode of strengthening the believing 
attitude by pleasure- Irrespective of the contemplation of 
the end, which is necessarily pleasure (whether direct, or indi- 
rect, as relief from pain), there may be other causes of plea- 
sure operating at the moment to impart elation or buoyancy 



INFLUENCE OF THE FEELINGS. 381 

of tone. Such elation strengthens the believing temper, with 
respect to whatever is in hand. A traveller in quest of new 
regions is subject to alternations of confidence according to 
the states of mind that he passes through, from whatever 
cause. He is more sanguine when he is refreshed and vigorous, 
when the day is balmy, or the scenery cheerful, there being no 
real accession of evidence through any of these circumstances. 

That a higher mood of enjoyment should be a higher mood 
of belief is evident on both aspects of belief. In the first place, 
whatever action is present is more vigorously pursued, with 
which vigour of pursuit the state of confidence is implicated. 
And, in the second place, as regards the cheering ideal fore- 
taste of the final end, anything that improves the elation of 
tone has the very same effect as the improved prospect of 
the end would have, such improved prospect meaning a stronger 
belief. What we want from a strong assurance is mental 
comfort, and if the comfort arises concurrently with the belief, 
we have the thing wished, and the belief is for the moment 
made up by an adventitious or accidental mixture. 

In some forms of Belief, as in Religion, the cheering cir- 
cumstance is the prominent fact. Such belief is valued as a 
tonic to the mind, like any form of pleasure ; the belief and 
the elation are convertible facts. Hence, when the belief is 
feeble, any accession of a joyful mood ■ will be seen to 
strengthen the belief, while the opposite state will be supposed 
to weaken it ; the fact being that the two influences conspire 
together, and we may, if we please, put both to the account of 
one, especially if the source of the other is hidden or unseen. 

The cultivation of these last named beliefs is purely 
emotional, and consists in strengthening the associations of 
feeling in the mind ; the case is in all respects identical with 
the growth of an affection. With any strong affection, there 
is implicated a corresponding strength of belief. 

Mere strength of excitement, of the neutral kind, will con- 
trol belief as it controls the will, by the force of the persisting 
idea. Whatever end very much inflames the mind, will be 
impressed according to the strength of the excitement, and 
irrespective of the pleasure or the pain of it, and, in deter- 
mining to action, will constitute belief in whatever appears as 
the intermediate instrument. A very slight and casual asso- 
ciation will be taken up and assumed as a cause. The mother 
having lost a child will conceive a repugnance to a certain 
thing associated in her mind with the child's death ; she will 
keep aloof from that thing with the whole force of her will to 



382 BELIEF. 

save her other children ; which is tantamount to believing in 
a connexion of cause and effect between the two facts. The 
influence of the feelings thus serves to confirm an intellectual 
link, perhaps only once experienced, into a strong associa- 
tion, such as a great many counter experiences may not be 
able to dissolve. 

Lastly, the power of the feelings to command the presence 
of one class of thoughts, and banish all of a hostile kind from 
the view, necessarily operates in belief as in action. A fright 
fastens the thoughts upon the circumstances of alarm, and 
renders one unable to hold in the view such as could neutralize 
the terror. There are considerations within reach that would 
prevent us believing in the worst, but they cannot make their 
appearance ; the well-timed reminder of them by the agency 
of a friend, is then an invaluable substitute for the paralyzed 
operation of our own intelligence. 

8. The Belief in the order of the World, or the course 
of Nature, varies in character, in different persons, accord- 
ing to the relative predominance of the three causes 
enumerated. 

All belief implicates the order of the world ; or the con- 
nexion between one thing and another thing, such that the 
one can be employed as a means to secure the other as an end. 
We believe that a rushing stream is a prime mover; that 
vegetation needs rain and sunshine ; that animals are pro- 
duced from their own kind ; that the body is strengthened 
by exercise. 

The chief source of belief is unobstructed activity. A 
single experiment is enough to constitute belief; what we 
have done successfully once, we are ready to do again, with- 
out the smallest hesitation. Repetition may strengthen the 
tendency, but five repetitions do not give five times the con- 
viction of one ; it would be nearer the mark to say, that, apart 
from our educated tests of truth, fifty repetitions might per- 
haps double the strength of conviction of the first. We are 
all faith at the outset ; we become sceptics by experience, that 
is, by encountering checks and exceptions. We begin with 
unbounded credulity, and are gradually educated into a more 
limited reliance. 

Our belief in the physical laws is our primitive spontaneity 
contracted to the bounds of experience. Of this kind, is our 
faith in gravity, heat, light, and so on. Our trials are greatly 
simplified by the guidance of those that have gone before us. 



BELIEF IN THE OKDEK OF NATURE. 383 

As regards the more ordinary phenomena, we soon fall into 
the right channels of acting ; an animal learns in a short time 
from what height it can jump with safety. 

The long catalogue of perverted, extravagant, erratic 
beliefs, can in most instances be accounted for by some 
unusual degree of feeling, whether pleasure, pain, or mere 
excitement. We are hard to convince that anything we like 
can do us any mischief; this is strength of pleasurable feeling, 
operating through desire, and barring out from the thoughts 
the hostile experience. We believe in the wisdom and other 
merits of the persons that we love or admire ; another of the 
many instances of the power of feeling. We have at first un- 
limited faith in testimony ; whatever is told us is presumed, 
as a matter of course, to be true, just as what we find on a 
first trial, is expected to hold always. Experience has to limit 
this sweeping confidence ; and if likings and dislikings are 
kept under, and remembered facts are alone trusted to, 
we acquire what is called a rational belief in testimony, 
namely, a belief proportioned to the absence of contradictory 
facts. 

Our belief is influenced by our fellow beings in obvious 
ways. Sympathy and Imitation make us adopt the actions 
and the feelings of those about us ; and the effect of society 
does not stop here, but goes the length of compulsion. By 
these combined influences, we are educated in all beliefs that 
transcend our own experience, and swayed even in what falls 
under our observation. 

A mere intellectual statement, often repeated, disposes us 
to credence, but does not amount to the state of belief, till we 
have occasion to take some action upon it ; and the real force 
of the state arises when our action receives some confirmation. 
We are in a very loose state of mind as regards many floating 
doctrines, such as the recondite assertions of science, and the 
higher mysteries of the supernatural. Should we make a 
single experiment for ourselves, and find it accord with what 
has been affirmed, we are at once elevated into confidence, 
perhaps even beyond the actual truth ; the untutored mind 
knowing nothing of the repetitions and precautions necessary 
to establish a fact. 

The superstitious beliefs of unenlightened ages, — astrology, 
alchemy, witchcraft, — and the perversions of scientific truth 
in early philosophy from the various strong emotions, are all 
explicable upon the influence of feeling in the originators, with 
the subsequent addition of authority and imitation. 



384 BELIEF. 

9. Belief is opposed, not by Disbelief, but by Doubt. 

As mental attitudes, Belief and Disbelief are the same. We 
cannot believe one thing without disbelieving some other 
thing ; if we believe that the sun is risen, we must disbelieve 
that he is below the horizon. 

When we are unable to obtain a conviction, one way or 
other, we are said to doubt, to be in a state of uncertainty, or 
suspense. If the thing concerns us little, we are indifferent 
to this absence of the means of conviction. The condition of 
doubt is manifested in its true character, as a distressing ex- 
perience, when we are obliged to act and are yet uncertain as 
to the course. The connexion of means and end does not com- 
mand our belief or assurance ; there are opposing suggestions 
or appearances, more or less evenly balanced ; or there is no- 
thing to go upon in either way. Hence we are in danger of 
being baulked in our ends ; and, in addition, have all the 
vacillation of a conflict. In matters of great import, doubt is 
the name for unspeakable misery. 

Doubt and Fear, although distinguishable, run very closely 
together. Doubt, in its painful and distressing form, is pre- 
cisely the state of Fear. A cause of fear deepens the condi- 
tion of doubt ; circumstances of doubt will intensify fear. 
The same temperament is victorious alike over doubt and fear ; 
the active disposition has been seen to be a spring of courage. 

10. The opposing designations Hope and Despond- 
ency signify phases of Belief. 

Hope expresses belief in its cheering or elating aspect, 
being the confidence in future good, the belief that some 
agreeable end is more or less certain in its arrival. It farther 
denotes something less than total or complete assurance, or 
rather it is considered as ranging in compass from the smallest 
degree of confidence that can have any elating effect, up to 
the highest point when prospect is on a level with possession. 
Hence, in expressing hope, we usually append an epithet of 
degree ; we have good hopes of a prosperous commercial 
year, we have faint hopes of the next harvest. 

The opposite of Hope is not Fear, but Despondency, the 
belief in coming evil, a condition of mind the more depressing 
as the belief is stronger. An army over-matched is despon- 
dent : that is, believes in impending defeat. The state of 
Fear very readily supervenes ; but there may be despondency, 
with the absence of fear proper. The extreme of Despondency 
is Despair. 



CONDITIONS OF MOBAL ACQUIREMENTS. 385 

When the hope or the despondency can be based on cer- 
tain evidence, or on probable evidence as entertained by a 
highly disciplined judgment, they are comparatively little 
affected by extraneous agencies of elation or depression. But 
in matters of probable evidence, and in minds of little sta- 
bility, the state of hope or despondency fluctuates with the 
influences that raise or depress the general tone. Every thing 
already said, of Belief in general, is true of belief under the 
name of Hope. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE MOEAL HABITS. 

1. The Moral Habits are the acquirements relating to 
Feelings and Volitions. 

Besides the intellectual acquirements properly so called, 
as Language, Science, &c, we have a series of growths con- 
sisting in the increase or diminution of the feelings, and in 
modifications of the strength of the will, whereby some 
motives gain and others lose in practical efficacy. We speak 
of habits of Courage, Fortitude, Command of Temper, mean- 
ing that those qualities have attained, through education, a 
degree not attaching to them naturally. 

2. The Moral Acquirements come under the general 
conditions of Betentiveness. 

In heightening, or in detracting from, the natural strength 
of feelings and volitions, we are aided by all the circumstances 
enumerated in regard to the attainments of the intellect. 

In the first place, a certain repetition is necessary, greater 
or less according to the change that has to be affected, and to 
the absence of other favouring circumstances. The moral 
education seldom reaches maturity till a late period of life. 

In the second place, the mind may be more or less con- 
centrated on the acquisition. Apart from the amount of repe- 
tition, moral progress depends greatly on the bent of the 
learner towards the special acquisition. If we are striving 
con amove to attain any important habitude, such as the Com- 
mand of the Attention, the currents of the brain are exclu- 
25 



386 THE MORAL HABITS. 

sively set in this one direction, instead of being divided with 
other engrossments. A less efficient, although still a powerful, 
stimulus, is the application of pain. 

In the third place, individuals differ in the power of 
Retentiveness or Adhesiveness, as a whole ; rendering them 
apt as learners generally. 

There are also local endowments leading to a special 
retentiveness in matters of knowledge; as when the good 
natural ear brings about rapid musical attainments. It might 
be over-refining to attempt to carry this supposition into the 
domain of the feelings. 

3. The conditions special to the Moral Acquirements 
are, first, an Initiative, and, secondly, a Gradual Exposure 
in cases of conflict. 

As a large and important branch of moral acquisition 
consists in strengthening one power to overcome another, it 
is of great advantage to have an uninterrupted series of suc- 
cesses : which can only be secured by strongly backing at 
first the motive to be strengthened, and by never giving it 
too much to do. Defeats should be avoided, especially in the 
early stages. 

4. We may begin the detail by adverting to the 
voluntary control of Sense and Appetite. 

We have seen, in the conflict of Motives, the sensations 
and the appetites resisted by ideal considerations, that is, by 
good and evil in the distance. Now, this control depends, at 
first, on the relative strength of Appetite and of the Memory 
of good and evil ; eventually, however, repeated action in one 
way, either in indulging or in thwarting the appetite, brings 
into play E/etentiveness, or habit, as an additional force on 
the prevailing side. 

Take, as an example, the endurance of cold, for purposes 
of healthy stimulation, as in habitual cold bathing and ex- 
posure to weather. There is a conflict of volition between 
present sensation, and good and evil in the distance. The 
ideal motive may be at first too weak, and may need 
strengthening ; for which end, it is desired to superadd the 
force of habit. The commencement demands an Initiative. 
Some cause from without should induce the regular and 
systematic exposure of the body to cold water and cold air. 
At the early stages, there may be felt a revulsion at the 
process. Repetition, if steady, has a twofold effect ; it lowers 



CONTKOL OF SENSE AND APPETITE. 387 

the painful sensibility, and increases the tendency to perform 
the actions as the appointed time comes round. Now, with a 
view to the more speedy attainment of these two ends, there 
should never be any intermission, or giving way ; and the 
shock encountered should not be of such an extreme kind, as 
would make an insurmountable aversion. Hence, an ade- 
quate initiative should concur with a graduation of the 
exposure ; with these two conditions, the progress of the 
habit is steady and sure. The subject of the experiment can, 
after a time, be left to the ordinary motives ; the moral edu- 
cation being complete. 

A parallel illustration applies to the whole department of 
Temperance or control of Appetite. 

Under the present head, we may notice the Command of the 
Attention, as against the diversions and solicitations of out- 
ward things. The infant is at the mercy of every sight and 
every sound, and has no power of consecutive attention, unless 
under some one sensation stronger than any of the rest. 
Early education has to reclaim the wandering and volatile 
gaze. The child is set to a short lesson, in the first instance, 
under a sufficient pressure from without to maintain the atten- 
tion during that time, and in spite of casual diversions. The 
demand for concentration is increased slowly, never exceed- 
ing what the combined force of the initiative and the acquired 
bent can achieve. 

Belonging to various situations and occupations is the 
habit of becoming indifferent to noise and to the distraction of 
spectacle, as in the bustle of towns and places of business. 
The ability to seclude the attention in the midst of noise may 
be acquired, if the conditions can be complied with. There 
must be to commence with some power sufficient to divert the 
mind from the noise for certain periods of time ; during every 
such period a lesson is taken, and, by sufficient repetition, the 
power of indifference may become complete for all circum- 
stances. The inuring process, while succeeding in most in- 
stances, entirely fails in some; the reason being that the sensi- 
tiveness cannot by any influence be sufficiently overcome to 
make a beginning. If these susceptible minds, instead of 
being at once immersed in the uproar, could be subjected to a 
steadily increasing noise, they might be hardened at last. 

5. Culture applied to the Special Emotions may em- 
brace (1) the Emotional susceptibility on the whole, and 
(2) the Emotions singly. 



388 THE MORAL HABITS. 

(1) There is in each person a certain Emotional constitu- 
tion, or natural proneness to Emotion generally ; shown in 
the amount of emotional fervour and display. This may be 
increased or diminished by cultivation, at the expense of the 
two other departments of the mind. By sympathy, stimula- 
tion, and encouragement, by occupying the mind with emo- 
tional exercises, the department acquires more than its natural 
dimensions, while Volition and Intellect are proportionably 
shrivelled. If, besides the positive encouragement of the emo- 
tional side, there are positive discouragements to exerting 
Will and Intelligence, the work of re-adjustment will go on 
still faster. 

There are nations whose character is highly emotional in 
comparison with others ; at the head of the scale in Europe, 
we may place the Italians, after which come the French, Ger- 
mans, English. An English child domesticated in Home or 
Florence, would contract something of the Italian fervour ; an 
Italian child, reared in the north of Scotland, would be ren- 
dered more volitional or intellectual, and less emotional. 

The leading displays of Emotion generally are, the sus- 
ceptibility to Amusement, great Sociability, devotion to Fine 
Art, the warmer modes of Heligious sentiment, and an emo- 
tional colouring impressed on scientific doctrines. 

(2) Any single emotion may be made more or less 
copious. Much important discipline is involved in the en- 
couragement or repression of individual emotions. 

For example, the pleasure of Liberty, with the pain of Con- 
straint, needs to be surmounted in many ways, being opposed 
to Industry, to Obedience or submission, and to the checks 
and obstructions of one's lot. No better example can be given 
of the power of habituation ; while the manner of attaining it 
is in full accordance with the general rules. The dislike to 
restraints may be completely overcome, and with it the plea- 
surable rebound of liberty. "When this is the case, we shall 
find that the initiative has been all-powerful to secure un- 
broken submission. In every well-ordered mind, there are 
numerous instances of restraints, at first painful, now utterly 
indifferent ; scarcely any pleasure would be felt in breaking 
out from them. The old soldier has contracted a punctuality 
and an obedience, so thorough as to be mechanical ; he 
neither feels the pang of constraint, nor would he rejoice in 
being set free from the obligation. 

We have, in the case of Terror, a valuable illustration of 
the imperative nature of a gradual habituation. With a view 



CULTURE AND SUPPRESSION OF EMOTIONS. 389 

to impart a certain degree of courage to a timid constitution, 
it is above all things necessary to avoid a severe fright. A 
gentle and graduated exposure to occasions of alarm might do 
much to establish courage by habit, all other circumstances 
being favourable ;. a single giving way is a serious loss of 
ground. 

The developments of the Tender Feeling include an ex- 
tensive course of habituation. Irrespective of the associations 
that connect it with special objects, constituting the affections, 
the indulgence of tender feeling increases the power of the 
emotion as a whole. 

The Emotion of Self- tenderness, or Self-complacency, 
being a special direction of the general feeling, is amenable 
to culture or restraint. The initiative in the case must be 
the individual's own volition r it being impracticable for others 
to control, otherwise than by example or moral suasion, an 
emotion that works unseen. 

The Emotion of Approbation, Praise, Glory, may be 
repressed by control, and its repression rendered habitual. 
Jt is a part of every one's experience to share in unmerited 
reproaches : and public men more especially have to contract 
a settled indifference to abuse. This is one of the cases 
where the system adjusts itself by the operation of Relativity. 
As praise and censure are felt in their highest force only 
while fresh, they are dependent on the occurrence of new 
occasions. 

It is almost, if not altogether, a contradictory aim to 
become indifferent to blame, while fostering the pleasure of 
praise. We may acquire by habit a certain amount of in- 
difference to other men's opinions,, favourable or unfavourable, 
surrendering the pleasure as well as surmounting the pain. 
There is another course somewhat less sweeping: namely, 
to acquire a settled disesteem, or contempt, of certain indi- 
viduals, whose censure thereby loses its force ; while we retain 
a susceptibility to the opinion of others disposed to praise 
more than to blame us. 

The Emotion of Power, being in its unbridled gratification 
so mischievous,, is subjected to control on moral grounds. 
To attain habits of moderation in regard to this craving, a 
man must be himself impressed with the evils of it, so as to 
put forth a commanding volition, and thereby initiate a habitual 
coercion. 

The outbursts of Irascibility have to be checked by 
voluntary control confirmed into habit. The education of 



390 THE MORAL HABITS. 

the young comprises this department. The value of the 
initiative is fully manifested in this case. External influence, 
according to an ideal mixture of firmness and conciliation, is 
most happily employed in restraining the childish ebullitions 
of temper, so as to mature an early habit of coolness and 
suppression. It is more difficult to reach the deep-seated plea- 
sure of malevolence than to check the incontinent paroxysms 
most usually identified with irascibility. A man may be 
exacting, jealous, revengeful, without showing fits of ill temper. 

The department of Plot-interest may be pandered to by 
incontinent amusement, or restrained by self-command and 
by early discipline. A great indulgence in the amusements 
described under this head is a test of the Emotional nature 
as a whole. 

The Emotions of Intellect are cherished or suppressed by 
the same causes as the intellect itself. 

On the cultivation of Taste there is nothing new to be 
said. The transformation of a human being, born with a defi- 
cient sensibility, into an artistic nature, expresses perhaps the 
very utmost stretch that culture can effect, every circumstance 
being supposed favourable. There must be a great starving 
down of the predominating elements of the character, to bring 
forward this single feature from its low, to a high, estate. 

The Moral Feelings exemplify in the most interesting 
case of all, the same general considerations. When the 
elements of the moral sentiment are known, the manner of its 
development and its confirmation into habit are sufficiently 
plain ; bat the importance of the subject deserves a separate 
chapter. 

6. Certain Habits may be specified under the Activity 
or the Will. 

(1) In connexion with the active organs, we contract 
habits of invigoration and endurance, as the result of prac- 
tice. Whatever organ is steadily employed — the arm, the 
hand, the voice — attains greater strength and persistence, 
provided the habituation is gradual, and the demands never 
too great. Still, we must not forget, that such a strengthen- 
ing process, if carried far, will usurp so much of the nutrition 
of the system, as seriously to impair other functions either 
bodily or mental. As regards physical expenditure, the 
intellect is our most costly function. 

To evolve a larger quantity of spontaneous action than 
belongs to the constitution by nature, is one of the possible 



CONTROL OF THE INTELLECTUAL TKAINS. 391 

ways of re- distributing the powers of the system. A languid, 
inactive temperament may be spurred up to greater energy, 
by surrendering some other point of superiority ; as when a man 
whose forte is intelligence enters the army, or other active 
profession. 

(2) The habit of Endurance, as connected with Desire, 
might be advantageously dwelt upon. There are instances, 
where endurance is made habitual, under an outward initia- 
tive, as in apprenticeship to work. In other cases, it is the 
will's own resolution, under motives of good and evil. If a 
certain degree of steadiness can be maintained in bearing up 
against any endurable pain, the reward will follow in abate- 
ment of the effort or struggle. 

7. The voluntary control of the Intellectual trains may 
pass into Habit. 

There are two special modes of voluntary control of the 
trains of thought, and, in both, practice leads to habit. 

(1) Mental concentration, as against digressions, wander- 
ings, reveries, may be commanded by motive ; and, if initiated 
adequately and maintained persistently, may acquire the ease 
that habituation gives. 

(2) The power of dismissing a subject from the mind is 
an exercise of will in opposition to intellectual persistence, and 
is difficult according as that persistence is inflamed by feeling. 
At first a severe or impracticable effort, it is eventually com- 
manded by men trained to intellectual professions, and is 
essential to the despatch of multifarious business. 

It is important to repeat, that many of the acquisitions, 
detailed in this chapter, are vast changes, amounting almost 
to a reconstruction of the human character ; and that, to ren- 
der them possible, the conditions of plastic growth must be 
present in an unusually favourable degree. Bodily health and 
nourishment, exemption from fatigues, worry and harass- 
ment, absence of heavy drafts upon the plastic power by other 
acquisitions, together with the special conditions more par- 
ticularly urged in this chapter, must conspire with a consti- 
tutional endowment of Betentiveness, to operate these great 
moral revolutions. 



392 * f PRUDENCE. 



CHAPTEE X. 
PKUDENCE.— DUTY.- MOEAL INABILITY. 

1. Human Pursuit, as a whole, is divided, for im- 
portant practical reasons, into two great departments. 

The first embraces the highest and most comprehensive 
regard to Self; and is designated Prudence, Self-Love, 
the search after Happiness. It is opposed or thwarted 
mainly by the urgency of present good or evil, and by 
fixed ideas. 

Happiness is made up of the total of our pleasures, 
diminished by the total of our pains ; and the endeavour after 
it resolves itself into seeking the one and avoiding the other. 
There is a complicated mixture of good and evil always in the 
distance, and even in the absence of moral weakness, we 
should find the problem of our greatest happiness on the 
whole, one of considerable perplexity. 

The influences on the side of Prudence are these : — 

(1) The natural aptitude, so often alluded to, for remem- 
bering good and evil, by which the future interests are 
powerfully represented in the conflict with present or actual 
pleasure and pain. 

(2) The influences brought to bear upon the mind, 
especially in early years, in the way of authority, example, 
warning, instruction; all which, if happily administered, may 
both supply motives and build up habits, such as to counteract 
the strong solicitations of present appetite or emotion. 

(3) The acquired knowledge, referring to the good and 
evil consequences of action. A full acquaintance with the 
laws of our own bodies and minds, with the ongoings of 
society, and with the order of nature generally, counts on the 
side of prudence by making us aware of the less obvious ten- 
dencies of conduct. 

(4) The floating opinion of those around us, the public 
inculcation of virtuous conduct, and the whole literature of 
moral suasion, backed by the display of approved examples, 
go a great way to form the prudential character of the mature 
individual. 



INFLUENCES IN FAVOUR OF DUTY. 393 

Although the proper function of public opinion is to mould 
us to duty, as contrasted with mere prudence, yet in no 
country, has society refrained from both teaching and even 
compelling prudential conduct, according to approved stand- 
ards. 

(5) The reflections of the individual mind, frequently and 
earnestly turned upon what is best in the long run, are a 
powerful adjunct to the building up of a prudential character. 
The more we allow ourselves to dwell upon past errors, the 
more we increase their deterring force in the future. More- 
over, a certain deliberative habit is necessary to carrying out 
wisely any end of pursuit, and most of all the pursuit of the 
end that includes and reconciles so many ends. 

2. The second department of pursuit comprises the 
regard to others, and is named Duty. It is warred against 
not only by the forces inimical to Prudence, but also occa- 
sionally by Prudence itself. 

That, in the pursuit of our happiness, we shall not in- 
fringe on the happiness of others, is Duty, in its most impera- 
tive form. How far we shall make positive contributions to 
the good of our fellows is less definitely settled. 

The following are the prominent influences in favour of 
Duty. 

I. — The Sympathetic part of our nature has already been 
pointed out as the chief fountain of disinterested action. By 
virtue of sympathy, we are restrained from hurting other sen- 
tient beings ; and the stronger the sympathy, the greater the 
restraint. In many instances, we abandon pleasures, and 
incur pains, rather than give pain to some one that has en- 
gaged our sympathy. 

Sympathy is, in its foundation, a natural endowment, very 
feebly manifested in the lower races. It differs greatly among 
individuals of the same race ; and may be much improved by 
education. Its main condition is the giving heed or attention 
to the feelings of others, instead of being wholly and at all 
times absorbed with what concerns ourselves alone ; and this 
attention may be prompted by instructors and confirmed into 
habit. 

II. — No amount of sympathy ever yet manifested by human 
beings would be enough to protect one man from another. 
The largest part of the check consists in the application of 
Prudential or self-regarding motives. 

(1) Punishment, or the deliberate infliction of pain, in the 



394 DUTY. 

name of the collective mass of beings making a society, is the 
foremost incentive to Duty, considered as abstinence from in- 
juring others. Not only is this the chief deterring instru- 
ment, it is also the means of settling and defining what duty 
is. Society prescribes the acts that are held to be injurious, 
and does not leave the point to the option of the individual 
citizen. Our own sympathies might take a different direction, 
inducing us to abstain from what the society enjoins, and do 
what society forbids ; but we are not permitted to exercise 
our own discretion in the matter. Hence duty is the line 
chalked out by public authority, or law, and indicated by 
penalty or punishment. 

The penalties of law are thus of a two-fold importance in 
the matter of duty ; they both teach and enforce it. The fre- 
quent practice of abstaining from punishable acts generates 
the most important of all our active states, the aversion to 
whatever is forbidden in this form. Such aversion is Con- 
science in its most general type. 

(2) The sense of our personal interest in establishing a 
systematic abstinence from injury on the part of one man to 
another, is a strong motive of the prudential kind. A very 
little reflection teaches us that unless each person consents of 
his own accord to abstain from molesting his neighbour, he is not 
safe himself; and that the best thing for all is a mutual under- 
standing, or compact of non-interference, observed by each. 
No society can exist unless a considerable majority of its mem- 
bers are disposed to enter into, and to observe, such a com- 
pact. Punishment could not be applied to a whole com- 
munity; it is practicable only when the majority are volun- 
tary in their own obedience, and strong enough to coerce the 
breakers of the compact. 

It may be fairly doubted whether the most enlightened 
prudence would be enough of itself to maintain social obedi- 
ence. At all events, self-love will do little or nothing for 
improving the condition of society ; to the pure self-seeker, 
posterity weighs as nothing. Nor would self-love easily allow 
of that temporary expenditure that is repayed by the affection 
of others ; a certain amount of natural generosity is necessary 
to reap this kind of gratification. 

The average constitution of civilized man is a certain mix- 
ture of the prudential and the sympathetic; both elements 
are present, and neither is very powerful. Individuals are to 
be found prudential in the extreme, with little sympathy, and 
sympathetic in the extreme with little prudence ; but an or- 



MORAL INABILITY. 395 

dinary man has a moderate share of both. The performance 
of duty is secured in part by the self-regarding motives, and 
in part by the sympathetic or generous impulses, which prompt 
a certain amount of abstinence from injury and of self- 
sacrifice. 

3. The supporting adjuncts of prudenee are also 
applicable to strengthening the motives of Duty. 

The arts of moral discipline and moral suasion, in other 
words, the means of inculcating the conduct prescribed by 
society as binding on all citizens, are numerous and well 
known. Early inculcation, and example, together with the 
use of punishment ; the force of the public sentiment concur- 
ring with the power of the magistrate ; the systematic re- 
minders of the religious and moral teacher .; the insinuating 
lessons of polite literature.; and, not least^ the mind's own 
habits of reflection upon duty; — are efficacious in bring- 
ing forward both the sympathetic and the self-regarding 
motives to abstain from the conduct forbidden by the social 
authority. 

4. Moral Inability expresses the insufficiency of 
^ordinary motives, but not of all motives. 

The child that cannot resist the temptation of sweets, the 
confirmed drunkard, the incorrigible thief, are spoken of as 
labouring under moral inability to comply with the behests of 
prudence and of duty. The meaning is, that the motives on 
one side are not adequately encountered by motives on the 
other side. It is not implied that motives might not be found 
strong enough to change the conduct in all cases. Still less 
is it implied that the link of uniform causation in the case of 
motive and action is irregular and uncertain. 

There are states of mind, wherein all motives lose their 
power. An inability to remember or realize the consequences 
of actions.; or a morbid delusion such as to pervert the trains 
of thought, will render a human being no longer amenable to 
the strongest motives ; the inability then ceases to be moral. 
This is the state of insanity, and irresponsibility. 

There is a middle condition between the sane and the pro- 
perly insane, where motives have not lost their force, but 
where the severest sanctions of society, although present to the 
mind, are unequal to the passion of the moment. Such pas- 
sionate fits may occur, under extraordinary circumstances, to 
persons accounted sane and responsible for then actions ; if 



396 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

they occur to any one frequently, and under slight provocation, 
they constitute a degree of moral inability verging on the 
irresponsible. 

In criminal procedure, a man is accounted responsible, if 
motives still continue to have power over him. There is no 
other general rule.. It is requisite, in order to sustain the 
plea of irresponsibility or insanity, that the accused should 
not only be, but appear to the world generally to be, beyond 
the influence of motives. 



CHAPTER XL 
LIBEETY AND NECESSITY. 

1. The exposition of the Will has proceeded on the 
Uniformity of Sequence between, motive and action. 

Throughout the foregoing chapters, it is either openly 
affirmed or tacitly supposed, that the same motive, in the 
same circumstances, will be followed by the same action.. 
The uniformity of sequence, admitted to prevail in the phy- 
sical world, is held to exist in the mental world,, although the 
terms of the sequence are of a different character, as involving 
states of the subjective consciousness. Without this assump- 
tion, the whole superstructure of the theory of volition would 
be the baseless fabric of a vision. In so far as that theory 
has appeared to tally with the known facts and experience of 
human conduct, it vouches for the existence of law in the 
department of voluntary action. 

Apart from the speculations and inductions of mental 
science, the practice of mankind, in the furtherance of their 
interests, assumes the principle of uniformity. No one ever 
supposes, either that human actions arise without motive, or 
that the same motives operate differently in the same circum- 
stances. Hunger always impels to the search for food ; tender 



PREDICTION OF HUMAN CONDUCT. 397 

feeling seeks objects of affection ; anger leads to acts of 
revenge. If there be any interruption to these sequences, it 
is not put down to failure of the motives, but to the co- 
existence of others more powerful. 

The operations of trade, of government, of human inter- 
course generally, would be impracticable without a reign of 
law in the actions of human beings. The master has to 
assume that wages will secure service ; the sovereign power 
would have no basis but for the deterring operation of 
punishment. Such a thing as character, or the prediction of 
a man's future conduct from the past, would be unknown. 
We could no more subsist upon uncertainty in the moral 
world, than we could live on a planet where gravitation was 
liable to fits of intermission. 

If it be true that by the side of all mental phenomena 
there runs a Mne of physical causation, the interruption of the 
mental sequences would imply irregularity in the physical. 
The two worlds must stand or fall together. 

The prediction of human conduct is not less sure than the 
prediction of physical phenomena. The training of the mind 
is subject to no more uncertainty than the training of the 
body. The difliculty in both cases is the same, the com- 
plication and obscurity of the agents at work ; and there are 
many instances where the mental is the more predicable of 
the two. 

The universality of the law of causation lias been denied both 
in ancient and in modern times; but the denial has not been 
restricted to the domain of mind. Sokrates divided know- 
ledge into the divine and the human. Under the divine, he 
ranked Astronomy and Physical Philosophy generally, a depart- 
ment that was beyond the reach of human study, and reserved by 
the gods for their own special control, it being a profanity on the 
part of human beings to enquire by what laws, or on what prin- 
ciples, the department was regulated. The only course permitted 
was to approach the deities, and to ascertain their will and plea- 
sure, by oracles and sacrifices. The human department included 
the peculiarly Sokratic enquiries respecting just and unjust, 
honourable and base, piety and impiety, sobriety, temperance, 
courage, the government of a state, and such like matters ; on all 
these things, it was proper and imperative to make observations 
and enquiries, and to be guided in our conduct by the conclusions 
of our own intelligence. 

A modern doctrine, qualifying the law of universal causation, 
is seen in the theory of a particular providence expounded by 
Thomas Chalmers and others. It is maintained that the Deity, 
while observing a strict regularity in all the phenomena that are 



398 LIBEKTY AND NECESSITY. 

patent and understood, as the motions of the planets, the flow of 
the tides, the descent of rivers, may in the unexplained mysteries 
introduce deviations, as in the vicissitudes of the weather, the 
recovery of a sick man, or in turning the scale of a complicated 
deliberation of the mind. 

In such theories, it is to be observed, that the exception to 
law is not confined to the mental world, but embraces, to an 
equal, if not to a greater, extent, the physical world. 

2. The perplexity of the question of Free-will is 
mainly owing to the inaptness of the terms to express the 
facts. 

The idea of ' freedom' as attaching to the human will ap- 
pears as early as the writings of the Stoics. The virtuous man 
was said to be free, and the vicious man a slave ; the intention 
of the metaphor being not to explain voluntary action, but to 
attach an elevating and ennobling attribute to virtue. So- 
krates had used the same figure to contrast the inquirers 
into what he considered the proper departments of human 
study (justice, piety, &c.), with those that knew nothing of 
such subjects. ■ 

The epithets 'free' and i slave/ as applied the one to the-;;- 
virtuous, the other to the vicious man, occur largely in the 
writings of Philo Judeeus, through whom they probably ex- 
tended to Christian Theology. As regards appropriateness in 
everything but the associations of dignity and indignity, no 
metaphors could have been more unhappy. So far as the idea 
of subjection is concerned, the virtuous man is the greater 
slave of the two ; the more virtuous he is, the more he sub- 
mits himself to authority and restraints of every description ; 
while the thoroughly vicious man emancipates himself from 
every obligation, and is only rendered a slave at last when his 
fellows will tolerate him no longer. The true type of free- 
dom is an unpunished villain, or a successful usurper. 

The modern doctrine of Free-will, as opposed to [Neces- 
sity, first assumed prominence and importance in connexion 
with the theory of Original Sin, and the Predestinarian views 
of St. Augustin. In a later age, it was disputed between 
Arminians and Calvinists. 

The capital objection to Free-will, is the unsuitability, 
irrelevance, or impropriety of the metaphor ' freedom ' in the 
question of the sequence of motive and act in volition. The 
proper meaning of ' free ' is the absence of external compulsion ; 
every sentient being, under a motive to act, and not interfered 
with by any other being, is to all intents free ; the fox impelled 



INAPTNESS OF THE TERM FREE-WILL. 399 

by hunger, and proceeding unmolested to a poultry yard, is a 
free agent. Free trade, free soil, free press, have all intel- 
ligible significations ; but the question whether, without any 
reference to outward compulsion, a man in following the bent 
of his own motives, is free, or is necessitated by his motives, 
has no relevance. If necessity means that every time a wish 
arises in the mind, it is gratified without fail ; that there is 
no bar whatever to the realizing of every conceived pleasure, 
and the extinction of every nascent pain ; such necessity is 
also the acme of freedom. The unfaltering sequence of 
motive and act, of desire and fulfilment, may be called 
necessity, but it is also perfect bliss ; what we term freedom 
is but a means to such a consummation. 

The speciality of voluntary action, as compared with the 
powers of the inanimate world, is that the antecedent and the 
consequent are conscious or mental states (coupled of course 
with bodily states). When a sentient creature is conscious 
of a pleasure or pain, real or ideal, and follows that up with 
a conscious exercise of its muscles, we have the fact of 
volition ; a fact very different from the motion of running 
water, or of a shooting star, and requiring to be described in 
phraseology embodying mental facts as well as physical. 
But neither ' freedom ' nor ■ necessity ' is the word for ex- 
pressing what happens. There are always present two dis- 
tinct phenomena, which have to be represented for what they 
are, a phenomenon of mind conjoined with a fact of body. The 
two phenomena are successive in time ; the feeling first, the 
movement second. Our mental life contains a great many 
of these successions — pleasures followed by actions, and pains 
followed by actions. Not unfrequently two, three, or four 
feelings occur together, conspiring or conflicting with one 
another ; and then the action is not what was wont to follow 
one feeling by itself, but is a resultant of the several feelings. 
Practically, this is a puzzle to the spectator, who cannot 
make due allowances for the plurality of impulses ; but it 
makes no more difference to the phenomenon, than the differ- 
ence between a stone falling perpendicular under the one 
force of the earth's gravity, and the moon' impelled by a con- 
currence of forces calculable only by high mathematics. 

We do not convert mental sequences into pure material 
laws, by calling them sequences, and maintaining them (on 
evidence of fact) to be uniform in their working. Even, if 
we did make this blundering conversion, the remedy would 
not lie in the use of the word ' free.' We might with equal 



400 LIBERTY A.ND NECESSITY. 

appropriateness describe the stone as free to fall, the moon 
as free to deviate under sola,r disturbance ; for the stone 
might be restrained, and the moon somehow compelled to 
keep to an ellipse. Such phraseology would be obviously un- 
meaning and absurd, but not a whit more so, than in the 
application to the mental sequence of voluntary action. # 

3. On the doctrine of the uniform sequence of motive 
and action, meanings can be assigned to the several terms 
— Choice, Deliberation, Self-Determination, Moral Agency, 
Responsibility. 

These terms are supposed to involve, more or less, the 
Liberty of the Will, and to be inexplicable on any other theory. 
They may all be explained, however, without the mysticism 
of Free-will. 

Choice. When a person chooses one thing out of several 
presented, the choice is said to involve liberty or freedom. 
The simple fact is that each one of the objects has a certain 
attraction ; while that fixed upon is presumed to have the 
greatest attraction of any. There are three dishes before one 

* As it may seem an unlikely and overstrained hypothesis to represent 
men of the highest enlightenment as entangled in a mere verbal inac- 
curacy, a few parallel cases may be presented to the student. 

The Eleatic Zeno endeavoured to demonstrate the impossibility of 
motion. He said that a body must move either in the place where it is, 
or in the place where it is not ; but in neither case is motion possible ; 
for on the first supposition the body leaves its place, and the second is 
absurd. Here is a plain fact contradicted by what has seemed to many 
an unanswerable demonstration. The real answer is that the language 
contradicts itself ; motion is incompatible with the phrase in a place ; the 
fact is properly expressed by change of place. Introduce this definition 
and the puzzle is at an end ; retain the incompatible expression m a place, 
and there is an insoluble mystery. By a similar ingenuity in quibbling 
upon the word Infinite, the same philosopher reasoned that if Achilles and 
a Tortoise were to begin a race, Achilles would never beat the tortoise. 

In the Philebus of Plato, there is a mystical theory wrought up 
through the application of the terms * true' and * false' to pleasures and 
pains. Truth and falsehood are properties belonging only to affirmations 
or beliefs ; their employment to qualify pleasure and pain can only pro- 
duce the nonsensical or absurd. As well might a pleasure be called round 
or square, wet or dry. 

Many absurd questions have arisen through misapplying the attri- 
butes of the Extended or Object World, to the Subject Mind. If we 
were to ask how many pure spirits could stand on the point of a needle, 
or be contained in a cubical space, we should be guilty of the fallacy of 
irrelevant predication. The schoolmen debated whether the mind was in 
every part of the body, or only in the whole ; the question is insoluble, 
because unreal. It is not an intelligible proposition, but a jargon. 



DELIBERATION. — SELF DETERMINATION. 401 

at table ; the one partaken of is what the individual likes best 
on the whole. This is the entire signification of choice. 
Liberty of choice has no meaning or application, unless with 
reference to some prohibition from without ; the child who 
is not allowed to eat but of one dish, has no liberty of 
choice. In the absence of prohibition, the decision follows the 
strongest motive ; being in fact the only test of strength of 
motive on the whole. One may choose the dish that gives 
least present gratification, but if so, there must be some other 
motive of good or evil in the distance. Any supposition of 
our acting without adequate motive leads at once to a self- 
contradiction ; for we always judge of strength of motive by 
the action that prevails. 

Deliberation. This word has already been explained at 
length, on the Motive theory of the Will. There is nothing 
implied under it that would countenance the employment of 
the unfortunate metaphor ' freedom.' When we are subjected 
to two opposing motives, several things may happen. We 
may decide at once, which shows that one is stronger than the 
other ; we come upon three branching roads, and follow the 
one on the right, showing a decided preponderance of motive 
in that direction. This is simple choice without deliberative 
suspense. The second possibility is suspended action. This 
shows either that the motives are equally balanced, causing 
indecision, or that the deliberative veto is in exercise, whose 
motive is the experienced evils of hasty action in cases of dis- 
tracting motives. After a time, the veto is withdrawn, the 
judgment being satisfied that sufficient comparison of opposing 
solicitations has been allowed ; action ensues, and testifies 
which motive has in the end proved the strongest. 

There is no relevant application of the term 'freedom' in 
any part of this process, unless on the supposition of being 
driven into action, by a power from without. A traveller 
with a brigand's pistol at his ear has no liberty of deliberation, 
or of anything else. An assembly surrounded with an armed 
force has lost its freedom. A mind exempt from all such com- 
pulsion is under the play of various motives, and at last de- 
cides ; some one or more of the motives is thereby demon- 
strated superior to the others. 

8 elf- determination. There is supposed to be implied in 
this word some peculiarity not fully expressed by the 
sequence of motive and action. A certain entity called c self,' 
irresolvable into motive, is believed to interfere in voluntary 
action. 

26 



402 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

But, as with the other terms, self- determination has no in- 
telligible meaning, except as opposed to. compulsion from 
without. If a man's conduct follows the motives of his own 
mind, instead of being dictated by another man, he possesses 
self-determination in the proper sense of the word. It is not 
requisite that he should act otherwise than from sufficient 
motives, in order to be self-determined. c Self/ in the 
matter of action, is only the sum of the feelings, pleasurable 
and painful, actual and ideal, that impel the conduct, together 
with the various activities impelled. 

Self-determination may be used to indicate an important 
difference in our motives, the difference between the perma- 
nent interests and the temporary solicitations. He that submits 
to the first class is considered to be more particularly self-deter- 
mined, than he that gives way to the temporary and passing 
motives. The distinction is real and important, and has been 
fully accounted for in the exposition of the Will. To neutralize, 
by internal resources, the fleeting actualities of pleasure and 
pain, is a great display of moral power, but has no bearing 
upon the supposed 'freedom' of the will. It is a fact of 
character, exactly expressed by the acquired strength of the 
ideal motives, which strength is shown by the fact of superi- 
ority to the present and the actual. Higorous constancy is 
the glory of the character ; the higher the constancy, the pre- 
dictability, of the agent, the higher the excellence attained. 

The collective ' 1 ' or ' self • can be nothing different from 
the Feelings, Actions, and Intelligence of the individual ; 
unless, indeed, the threefold classification of the mind be in- 
complete. But so long as human conduct can be accounted for 
by assigning certain Sensibilities to pleasure and pain, an Active 
machinery, and an Intelligence, we need not assume anything 
else to make up the C I' or 'self.' When ' I' walk in the fields, 
there is nothing but a certain motive, founded in my feelings, 
operating upon my active organs ; the sequence of these two 
portions of self gives the whole fact. The mode of expression 
1 1 walk ' does not alter the nature of the phenomenon. 

Self-determination may put on an appearance of evading 
or contradicting the sequence of the will; as when a man 
departs from his usual line of conduct in order to puzzle or 
mystify spectators. It is, however, very obvious that the 
suspension of the person's usual conduct is still not without 
motive ; there is a sufficiency of motive in the feelings of pride 
or satisfaction, in baulking the curiosity, or in overthrowing 
the calculations, of other persons. 



MORAL AGENCY. — ACCOUNTABILITY. 403 

The word ' Spontaneity ' is a synonym for self-determina- 
tion, but comes no nearer to a justification of the absurd 
metaphor. We have seen one important meaning of the word, 
in the doctrine of the inherent activity of the animal system, 
as contrasted with the activity stimulated by sense. The more 
common meaning is the same as above described, and has a 
tacit reference to the absence of compulsion, or even of sug- 
gestion or prompting, from without. The witness of a crime, 
in giving information without being summoned, acts spon- 
taneously. 

Moral Agency. The word 'moral' is ambiguous. As 
opposed to physical or material, it means mental, belonging 
to mind ; in which signification, a moral agent is a voluntary 
agent, a being whose actions are impelled by its feelings. 

It is no part of moral agency, in this sense, that there 
should be any suspension of the usual course of motives ; it is 
necessary only that the individual being should feel pleasure 
and pain, and act with reference to those feelings. Every 
creature possessing mind is a moral agent. 

In the second meaning, moral is opposed to immoral, or 
wrong, and is the same as 'right.' This is' a much narrower 
signification. When Moral Philosophy is restricted to mean 
Ethical philosophy, or Duty, 'Moral' means appertaining to 
right and wrong, to duty, morality. 

In this sense, a moral agent is one that acts according to 
right or duty, or else one whose actions are made amenable 
to a standard of right and wrong. The brutes are not moral 
agents in this signification, although they are in the preced- 
ing ; no more are children, or the insane. 

The circumstances that explain moral agency, in the 
narrower and more dignified application of the word, 
appear best in connexion with the word next to be com- 
mented on. 

Responsibility, Accountability. A moral agent is usually 
said to be a responsible or accountable agent. The word re- 
sponsibility is, properly speaking, figurative ; by what is called 
' metonymy,' the fact intended to be expressed is denoted by 
one of the adjuncts. A whole train of circumstances is sup- 
posed, of which only one is named. There are assumed (I) 
Law, or Authority, (2) actual or possible Disobedience, (3) 
an Accusation brought against the person disobeying, (4) the 
Answer to this accusation, and (5) the infliction of Punish- 
ment, in case the answer is deemed insufficient to purge the 
accusation. 



404 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

It is hard at a first glance to see what connexion a sup- 
posed freedom of action has to do with any part of this pro- 
cess. According to the motive theory of the will, all is plain 
and straightforward. Assume the existence of Law, and 
everything follows by a natural course. To ensure obedience 
to law there must be some pain inflicted on the disobedient, 
sufficient, and no more than sufficient, to deter from dis- 
obedience. Whoever is placed under the law, is liable to the 
penalty of disobeying it; but in all countries, ever so little 
civilized, certain forms are gone through to ensure the guilt 
of every one accused of disobedience, to which the words 
Responsibility, Accountability, are strictly applicable ; after 
these forms are satisfied, and the guilt established, the penalty 
is inflicted. 

Endless puzzles are foisted into a very simple process, the 
moment the word 'freedom' is mentioned. It is said, that it 
would not be right to punish a man unless he were a free 
agent; a truism, if by freedom, is meant only the absence of 
outward compulsion ; in any other sense, a piece of absurdity. 
If it is expedient to place restrictions upon the conduct of 
sentient beings, and if the threatening of pain operates to 
arrest such conduct, the case for punishment is made out. 
We must justify the institution of Law, to begin with, and the 
tendency of pain to prevent the actions that bring it on, in 
the next place. The first postulate is Human Society ; the 
second is the connexion (which must be uniform) between 
pain and action for avoiding it. Granting these two postu- 
lates, Punishability (carrying with it, in a well constituted 
society, Responsibility), is amply vindicated. 

Whatever be the view taken of the ends of Punishment, 
it supposes the theory of the will as here contended for, 
namely, a uniform connexion between motive and act. Unless 
pain, present or prospective, impels human beings to avoid 
whatever brings it, and to perform whatever delivers from 
it, punishment has no relevance, whether the end be the 
benefit of the society, or the benefit of the offender, or both 
together.* 

* The question has been debated, 'Is a man responsible for his 
Belief;' in other words, Is society justified in punishing men for their 
opinions ? The two criteria of punishability will indicate the solution. 
In the first place, ought there to be Laws declaring that all citizens shall 
believe certain things ? Secondly, will pains and penalties influence a 
man's belief, in the same way that they can influence actions ? The 
answer to the first question, is another question, < Shall there be Tolera- 
tion of all opinions ?' The answer to the second is, that penalties are 



IS A MAN THE AUTHOR OF HIS CHARACTER ? 405 

Another factitious difficulty originated in relation to pun- 
ishment is the argument of the Owenites, ' that a man's 
actions are the result of his character, and he is not the author 
of his character : instead of punishing criminals, therefore, 
society should give them a better education. ' The answer to 
which is, that society should do its best to educate all citizens 
to do right ; but what if this education consists mainly in 
Punishment ? Withdraw the power of punishing, and there 
is left no conceivable instrument of moral education. It is 
true that a good moral discipline is not wholly made up of 
punishment ; the wise and benevolent parent does something, 
by the methods of allurement and kindness, to form the vir- 
tuous dispositions of the child. Still, we may ask, was ever 
any human being educated to the sense of right and wrong 
without the dread of pain accompanying forbidden actions ? 
It may be affirmed, with safety, that punishment, or retribu- 
bution in some form, is one-half of the motive power to virtue 
in the very best of human beings, while it is more than three- 
fourths in the mass of mankind. 

Another awkward form of expression connected with the 
subject is, that ' we can improve our character if we will.' 
This seems a contradiction to the motive theory of the Will, 
which makes man, as it were, the creature of circumstances. 
There is in the language, however, merely an example of the 
snares that we may get ourselves into, through seizing a ques- 
tion by the wrong end. Our character is improvable, when 
there are present to our minds motives to improve it ; it is 
not improvable without such motives. No character is ever 
improved without an apposite train of motives — either the 
punishment renounced by the Owenite, or certain feelings of 
another kind, such as affections, sympathies, lofty ideals, and 
so on. To present these motives to the mind of any one is to 
employ the engines of improvement. To say to a man, you 
can improve if you will, is to employ a nonsensical formula ; 
under cover of which, however, may lie some genuine motive 
power. For the speaker is, at the same time, intimating his 
own strong wish that his hearer should improve ; he is pre- 
senting to the hearer's mind the idea of improvement : and 
probably, along with that, a number of fortifying considera- 
tions all of the nature of proper motives. 

able to control beliefs, with a slight qualification. They can put a stop 
to the profession of any opinion; and in matters of doubtful speculation, 
they can so dispose the course of education and enquiry, that the mass of 
mankind shall firmly believe whatever the State dictates. 



406 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

Tiie word • will,' in such expressions as the above, is a fic- 
tion thrust into the phenomenon of volition, like the word 
'power' in cause and effect generally. To express causation 
we need only name one thing, the antecedent, or cause, and 
another thing, the effect ; a flying cannon shot is a cause, the 
tumbling down of a wall is the effect. But people sometimes 
allow themselves the use of the additional word ' power' to 
complete as they suppose the statement ; the cannon ball in 
motion has the ' power' to batter walls ; a pure expletive, or 
pleonasm, whose tendency is to create a mystieal or fictitious 
agency, in addition fco the real agent, the moving ball. 

To say we can be virtuous if we like, is about the worst 
way of expressing the simple fact, namely, that virtuous acts 
and a virtuous character are the consequence of certain appro- 
priate motives or antecedents. Whoever wishes to make an- 
other person virtuous can proceed direct to the mark by sup- 
plying the known antecedents, not omitting penalties ; who- 
ever wishes to make himself virtuous, has, in the very act of 
wishing, a present motive, which will go a certain way rto pro- 
duce the effect. 

The use of the phrase c you can if you will,' besides acting 
as a cover for real motives, is a sort of appeal to the pride or 
dignity of a human being, and in that circumstance, may not 
be without some Rhetorical efficiency ; insinuated praise is an 
oratorical weapon. As Rhetoric, the language may have some 
justification ; the disaster is that the Rhetoric should be taken 
for good science and logic. The whole series of phrases con- 
nected with Will, Freedom, Choice, Deliberation, Self-Deter- 
mination, Power to act if we will, are contrived to foster in 
us a feeling of artificial importance and dignity, by assimilat- 
ing the too humble sequence of motive and act to the illus- 
trious functions of the Judge, the Sovereign, the Umpire. 

HISTORY OF THE FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY. 

Plato makes the distinction of voluntary and involuntary 
(ekovglol; and cikovgwq) ; but he does not ask whether the will is 
self-determined or whether it is necessitated. 

Aristotle's doctrine of the Voluntary and Involuntary, as 
contained in the Mcomachean Ethics, Book III., is fully given in 
the abstract of that work (Ethical Systems, Aristotle). The 
misleading terms — Liberty and Necessity — had not in his time 
found their way into the subject; and he discusses the motives 
to the will from a practical and inductive point of view. 

The Stoics and Epicureans, like Aristotle, can hardly be 
regarded as contributing to the history of the proper Free-will 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — THE FATHERS. 407 

controversy, and their views are best given in connexion with 
their ethical doctrines (Ethical Systems, The Stoics, and The 
Epicureans). 

From Plotintjs we learn how the problem of freedom was 
understood by the Neo-Platokests. Will (OeXrjfjig) is not a 
faculty of the soul, but its essential attribute. It is not the same 
thing as liberty. Voluntary action (to Ikovgiov) is power to act 
accompanied by a consciousness of what is done. Liberty is when 
tie power to act is not impeded by any external restraint. Thus 
klling a man unconsciously is a free act, but not voluntary, 
liberty in man consists in being able to live a pure and perfect 
liie, conformably to the nature of the soul. The nature of every 
creature tends necessarily towards its good ; whatever diverts it 
from this end is involuntary ; whatever leads it thither is volun- 
tary. Freedom is thus made to consist in independence of ex- 
ternal causes. Plotinus does not therefore touch the peculiar 
problem of the will, whether the will is necessarily determined by 
motives ; but merely expands the popular notion that freedom is 
to follow persistently what is good, and slavery to follow what is 
bad. We speak of slaves to sin, more rarely of slaves to holiness ; 
yei, from the point of view of necessity, both expressions are 
eqrally correct, or equally incorrect. 

The Christian Apologists of the second century insist strongly 
on vhat they call the freedom of the will. In opposition to the 
f ata'ism of the Stoics, and the apathy of the Epicureans, they laid 
great stress upon man's power to judge and act for himself. 
Justin Martyr (a.d. 150) attacks the Stoical doctrine of Fate. 
It is opposed to their own moral teaching, and overlooks the 
power of the demons. It is by free choice that men do right or 
wrong, and it is by the power of the demons that earnest men, 
like Sokrates, suffer > while Sardanapalus and Epicurus live in 
abundance and glory. The Stoics maintained that all things took 
place according to the necessity of Fate. Justin pointed out the 
dilemma in which this doctrine held them. If everything be 
derived from fate, wickedness is, and so God or fate is the cause 
of sin. The alternative is, that there is no real difference between 
virtue and vice, which is contrary to all sound sense and reason. 

Tertullian (160-220) in his paper against Marcion, vindi- 
cates t'ae freedom of the will. Could not God have prevented the 
entrance of sin ? And if he could, why did he not ? Tertullian 
answers that evil arose, not from God, but from man. Man was 
left free to choose good or evil, life or death. But should not 
God have withheld this fatal gift ? Nay, in bestowing liberty, 
was he not responsible for the consequent fall ? Tertullian 
answers very rhetorically, what could be better than to make man 
in the image of God ? It would be strange if man, the lord of 
others, should himself be a slave. This argument illustrates the 
use that the theory of free-will has been put to by theologians. 
It has been regarded as a door of escape from the awful dilemma 
that, in all ages, staggers piety, and strikes reason dumb : If God 



408 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

was willing that evil should be, he is not good ; if he was unwill- 
ing, then he is not Almighty. This imports into the discussion 
an apparently insoluble contradiction, and necessarily leads to be- 
wilderment and mystery. Admitting that our volitions are sub- 
ject to the law of causation, it is possible and easy to vindicate 
human justice ; it is possible even, to a certain extent, to vindicate 
divine justice. For since we are imperfect and in need of niora? 
discipline, we must see that punishment is eminently calculated to 
effect our improvement. Why we were not made perfect at once, 
why the pursuit of happiness should be so arduous — it belongs not 
to any theory of the will to explain. 

St. Augustin, Bishop of Hippo (353-429), is as warm as Ter- 
tullian on the other side. He is the author of a complete scheiae 
of Predestination that continued with little variation to the close 
of the theological discussion of Free Will. His views underwent 
several changes in the course of his life, but the shape they finally 
took remains identified with the doctrine of Predestination. The 
foundation of his views was his theory of grace and faith. He 
affirmed the total inability of man to accomplish any good works. 
Good works, the smallest as well as the greatest, come wholly from 
God. Grace attracts the corrupt will of man, and with an irresistible 
necessity awakens him to the need of redemption and to faith. 
This grace is bestowed not for merit, but of God's free gift. The 
will is determined and controlled by the agency of God, in conse- 
quence of what he has foreordained. The Elect were chosen, not 
because it was foreseen that they would believe and become holy 
(as most of the earlier fathers held), but in order that they night 
be made holy. Augustin thus clearly distinguishes his doctrine 
from that of mere foreknowledge. He holds that some were 
chosen to eternal life, and others were predestined to everksting 
punishment. ' Whom he teaches, he teaches of his mercy ; vhom 
he does not teach, he does not teach because of judgment.' This 
doctrine seems to make God unjust. He foreordains fhat a 
man shall sin, and for this sin consigns him to eternal tornents. 
Augustin 's solution of the difficulty turns upon the doctxine of 
original sin. In Adam all men sinned, and rendered themselves 
justly liable to endless punishment. Adam's sin was the sin of 
every one of us. But Adam had free-will ; it was in Ills own 
power to Hx. his destiny ; he chose evil and death, and by his 
choice we all are irrevocably committed. God is not therefore the 
cause of that sin and consequent ruin ; he cannot be accused of 
injustice in leaving us in the state to which we have constructively, 
as lawyers would say, brought ourselves. The origin of evil is 
thus placed in the free-will of Adam, not in the decree of God. 
As this reasoning, even if conclusive, seems more fitted to silence 
than to convince, Augustin feels the necessity of advancing a step 
farther. In his tract on Grace and Free-will, he observes, that 
God moves men's hearts towards good works of his mercy ; to- 
wards bad, according to their deserts, by a judgment in part made 
known, in part mysterious, but always just. He does not elect 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — AQUINAS. 409 

men according to any merit they possess, but according to a hid- 
den judgment. Let not injustice be attributed to God, who is the 
fountain of wisdom and justice. "When he permits men to be 
seduced or hardened, believe that it is on account of their demerits ; 
in those whom he mercifully saves, behold the grace of God ren- 
dering good for evil. 

While Augustin's doctrine of Predestination seems to have 
left no place for free-will, we yet find warnings that in defend- 
ing grace, free-will must not be given up, nor in defending free- 
will must grace be given up. It seems difficult to attribute any 
meaning to free-will in such passages. How is the existence of 
irresistible grace compatible with free self-determination ! Again, 
he tells us that by the fall man lost both himself and his free 
will ; that the will is truly free, when it is not the slave of vice or 
sin. Also, free-will is given to man, so that punishment for sin, 
both by divine and human law, is just. Neander observes 
that Augustin has confounded the conception of freedom, as a 
certain stage of moral development, and freedom from the de- 
termination of motives — a faculty possessed by all rational minds. 
Mozley says, after carefully examining the language of Augustin, 
that free-will means, with him, mere voluntary action, such as 
is admitted by all necessitarians ; that the will (except perhaps 
Adam's) has no self- determining power, but is determined to evil 
and to good respectively, by original sin and by grace. 

Aquinas. Aquinas is a follower of Augustin in the doctrines 
of original sin, irresistible grace, and predestination. * Prsescien- 
tia meritorum non est causa vel ratio prasdestinationis.' The doc- 
trines of the church were to the schoolmen, what the acts of the 
legislature are to lawyers. They were subjects of deduction and 
argument, but not themselves to be questioned. But there is 
endless opportunity for ingenious interpretation in reconciling the 
doctrines with truth, or the laws with justice. It is, therefore, in- 
teresting to observe how Aquinas endeavoured to evade the con- 
sequences of a doctrine that he was not permitted to deny. 

(1) In the first place, the number of the reprobate was made 
as small as possible, as though that would lighten the difficulty. 
Perhaps, he says, the angels that did not fall with Satan, were 
more numerous than all the damned — men and devils together. 

(2) The difference between eternal happiness and misery per- 
haps amounts merely to degrees of good. According to Aquinas, 
there are two kinds of happiness ; one is natural, and attainable 
by mere human effort ; the other is spiritual. There is a corres- 
ponding distinction in virtue. There is a goodness in the world 
sufficient to attain natural happiness, as well as grace to attain 
spiritual happiness. Those kinds of goodness have their source re- 
spectively in Reason, and in God. The difference between those 
conditions is not one of good and evil, but of higher and lower 
good. Aquinas does not venture, further than by hints, to apply 
this theory of happiness to predestination and reprobation, except 
in one case. In favour of infants dying in original sin, he endea- 



410 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

vours, by an ingenious feat of interpretation, to extract the sting 
from eternal punishment. 

(3) Infants dying in original sin, are under the divine wrath 
due to that sin. However hard this conclusion may seem, it is 
unavoidable ; infants are condemned not for actual, but for con- 
structive, sin. But Augustin had said that the punishment of 
infants in hell was the mildest possible— omnium esse mitissimam. 
Aquinas then asks, if it was a sensible (or corporeal) punishment ? 
No, for then it would not be the mildest possible. Did it involve 
affliction of soul ? No, for that could arise only either from culpa 
or from poena. If it arose from culpa, that implied the presence 
of an accusing conscience, and it would not be the mildest. Nor 
could it arise from poena, which implied actual sin, or a will in 
opposition to the will of God. What then was the punishment of 
infants ? It was the want of Divine Vision — the object that the 
supernatural faculties sought. ' In the other goods to which 
nature tends upon her own principles, those condemned for ori- 
ginal sin will sustain no detriment.' The only difficulty now was 
a saying of St. Chrysostom's, that the loss of Divine Vision was 
the severest part of the punishment of the damned. Aquinas 
answers, that it is no pain to a well-ordered mind to want what 
its nature is not adapted to, provided the want does not arise 
from, any fault of its own. The infants will rejoice in their 
lot, not repining because they are not angels. This reasoning, 
though confined by Aquinas to the case of infants, yet applies logi- 
cally to the good, moral man, whose fault is substantially (unless a 
very technical view of sin be adopted) the sin of our first parents.* 

Calvin popularized the predestinarian views of St. Augustin. 
He accepts them in all their rigour, excluding every softening 
modification. He rejects the subtlety of Thomas Aquinas, that 
God predestinates man to glory, according to his merit, inas- 
much as he decreed to bestow upon him the grace by which he 
merits glory. He held that God foreordained some to heaven, 
and others to hell, not for any merit or demerit, but simply 
because it was his will so to do. The fall of Adam was not to be 
attributed to free will, but to the divine decree. 

The opponent of Augustin was Pelagius, who claimed for man 
complete freedom of self-determination and ascribed to God only 

* Mozley's Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, p. 302. We may 
subjoin some distinctions taken in regard to Freedom and Necessity. 
Peter Lombard says that three kinds of liberty must be discriminated : — 
(1) Freedom from necessity, which is possessed by God, since he cannot 
be coerced, and which, in man, is not affected by the fall ; (2) freedom 
from sin, which was lost by the fall ; (3) freedom from misery. Thomas 
Aquinas marks the following kinds of necessity: — (1) Natural, Absolute, 
or Intrinsic Necessity — that which cannot but be — is either material {e.g. 
quod omne compositum ex contrariis necesse est corrumpi) or formal {e.g. that 
the angles in a triangle are equal to two right angles). (2) Extrinsic 
Necessity is either of means to ends (as that food is necessary to life), or of 
compulsion, which last alone excludes will. Aquinas makes much of the 



FKEE-WILL CONTROVERSY — HOBBES. 411 

foreknowledge of what men, 'per liberae voluntatis arbitrium? 
would elect to do. After the time of Calvin, at the beginning of 
the 17th century, this view was again strongly advocated by 
Arminius in Holland; and thenceforth the opposed tenets, in the 
theological phase of the question, have passed under the names of 
Calvinism and Arminianism. 

The philosophical aspect begins to be more exclusively considered 
with the names that follow. 

Hobbes. Hobbes's opinion on the Free-will controversy is 
given very clearly and concisely in a short tract on ' Liberty and 
Necessity,' written in answer to another by Bishop Bramhall. He 
gives first his opinion, under several heads, and afterwards assigns 
his reasons. 

(1) When it occurs to a man to do or not to do a certain 
action, and he has no time, or no occasion, to deliberate, ' the doing 
it or abstaining necessarily follow the present thought he hath of 
the good or evil consequence thereof to himself.' In anger, the 
action follows the idea of revenge, in fear that of escape. Such 
actions are voluntary ; for a voluntary action is one that follows 
immediately the last appetite (Hobbes's phrase for volition). 
Rash actions are strictly voluntary, and therefore punishable, 
' For no action of a man can be said to be without deliberation, 
though never so sudden, because it is supposed he had time to 
deliberate all the precedent time of his life, whether he should do 
that kind of action or not." 

(2) Deliberation means considering whether it would be better 
to do the action or abstain, by imagining the consequences of it, 
both good and evil. This alternate imagination of good and evil 
consequences is the same as alternate hope and /ear, or alternate 
appetite to do or quit the action. 

(3) In deliberation, that is, the succession of contrary appetites, 
the last is the Will, and immediately precedes the doing of the 
action. All the appetites, prior to the last, are mere intentions 
•or inclinations. 

(4) An action is voluntary, if done upon deliberation, that is, 
upon choice and election. The meaning of free, as applied to a 
voluntary agent, is that he has not made an end of deliberating. 

(5) 'Liberty is the absence of all the impediments to action that 
are not contained in the nature of the agent.' [This means free- 
difference between judicium and ratio. Brutes have not freedom ; the 
sheep avoids a wolf, not ex collatione quadam rationis, but by natural 
instinct. Bat man has ratio, and ratio in contingent matters is concerned 
with opposites, and is not bound to follow any one. Inasmuch as man 
has ratio, he is not tied to one course. Will is related to free-will as 
intellectus is to ratio. Intellect us involves a mere apprehension of any- 
thing, as where principles are known of themselves without any collatio ; 
but to reason is devenire ex uno in cogniiionem alterius. In like manner, will 
(velle) is simply the desire of anything for its own sake ; free-will [eligere) 
is the desire of anything as a means to an end. The end is related to the 
means, as a principle is to the conclusion dependent upon it. 



412 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

dom from compulsion ; Hobbes does not allow necessity to be a 
true contrast to freedom.] 

(6) Nothing begins from itself. Hence, wben an appetite or 
will arises, the cause is not the will itself, but something else, not 
in one's own disposing. The will is the necessary cause of volun- 
tary actions, other things (than the will itself) are the cause of the 
will, therefore all voluntary actions have necessary causes, in other 
words, are necessitated. 

(7) A sufficient or necessary cause is that which alone produces 
the effect. This is merely an identical proposition, to show that 
whatever is produced, is produced necessarily r The cause being 
given, the effect necessarily follows, 

(8) The ordinary definition of a free agent, as that which, 
* when all things are present which are needful to produce the 
effect, can nevertheless not produce it,' is contradictory and non- 
sensical. 

For the truth of the five first positions, Hobbes appeals to 
every one's reflection and experience. The sixth position is, that 
nothing can begin without a cause, Now, there must be some 
special reason why a thing begins, when it does begin, rather 
than sooner or later ; or else the thing must be eternal. The 
seventh point is, that events have necessary causes, if they have 
sufficient causes, that is, in fact, if they have causes at all. From 
these principles, it follows that there is no freedom from necessity. 
He adds, as an argumentum ad hominem to the bishop, that if 
necessity be denied, the decrees and prescience of God will be 
left without foundation. 

Descartes, in his Fourth Meditation, gives a definition of 
Will and Freedom. ■ The power of will consists only in this, that 
we are able to do or not to do the same thing, or rather in this 
alone, that in pursuing or shunning what is proposed to us by the 
understanding, we so act that we are not conscious of being deter- 
mined to a particular action by any external force.' Freedom 
does not require indifference towards each of two courses, but is 
greater as we are more inclined towards truth or goodness.. In- 
difference, not moving for want of a reason, is the lowest grade of 
liberty, and manifests a lack of knowledge rather than perfection 
of will. 

In itself, Freedom is the same in man as in God y but it is exer- 
cised under different conditions. The will of God must have been 
indifferent from all eternity, as there was no antecedent idea of 
truth or good to determine it. It was from his almighty power 
that truth and good first arose. But man is differently situated : 
goodness has been established by God, and towards it the will 
cannot but tend. We are most free when the perfect knowledge 
of an object drives us to pursue it. 

In answer to Hobbes, Descartes adduces the evidence of con- 
sciousness. However difficult it may be to reconcile foreordina- 
tion with liberty, we have an internal feeling that the voluntary 
and the free are the same. This seems to indicate an anxiety to 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — LOCKE — SPINOZA. 413 

establish the internal fact, while otherwise willing to give up a 
liberty of indifference. 

Theologically, he maintains a stringent theory of Providence. 
The perfection of God required that the least thought in us should 
have been pre-determined from all eternity. The decrees of God 
are unchangeable, and prayer has an efficacy only because the 
prayer is decreed together with the answer. 

Locke was led in his chapter on Power (although it formed no 
part of his original plan), to investigate the nature of the will. 
He purposely avoided the metaphysical controversies regarding 
predestination and providence, refusing to deal with any supposed 
' consequences,' and rigorously confining himself to the question — 
What is the nature of the liberty possessed by men? The 
opinion of so acute and impartial a mind upon the bare facts of 
the case, must be taken as a near approach to the testimony of 
consciousness. Like Aristotle, he draws the distinction between 
voluntary and involuntary, but does not separate the voluntary 
from the freely voluntary.* He recognizes a meaning in liberty 
as opposed to coercion, but not as opposed to necessity. He 
defines freedom as 4 our being able to act or not to act, according 
as we shall choose or will.' This is the very definition contended 
for by Hobbes, and afterwards expressly adopted by the neces- 
sitarian Collins. 

In Book II., Chap. XXL, he discusses the idea of Power. He 
enters at length into the nature of Will, and handles first the 
doctrine of Free-will, and next the motives to the will. As 
regards Freedom, he endeavours to extricate the question from the 
confused modes of expressing it. The true question is not whether 
the will is free, but whether the man is free. Liberty is the power 
to do or to forbear doing any particular action, according to the 
preference or direction of one's own mind.t A man is free, if his 
actions follow his mental motives — pleasures and pains ; he is not 
free, when anything external to him forbids the actions so moved. 
Volition is an act of the mind exerting the dominion it takes itself 
to have over any part of the man, but is an operation better 
understood by any one's self-reflection, than by all the words 
employed to describe it. It is not to be confounded with desire ; 
we may will to produce an effect that we do not desire. 

With reference to the motive power, Locke resolves it into the 
uneasiness of the state of Desire. Hunger, thirst, and sex, are 
modes of uneasiness. When good determines the will, it operates 
first by creating a sense of uneasiness from the want of it. We 
find that the greatest prospects of good, as the joys of heaven, 

* B. II. Chap. XXL, § 11. 

t Locke asks the further question— whether a man is as free to will, as 
he is free to do what he wills. Of two courses, is he free to will which- 
ever he pleases ? This question involves an absurdity. They that make 
a question of it must suppose one will to determine the acts of another, 
and another to determine that ; and so on in infinitum. 



414 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

have a comparatively feeble motive power ; wliile a bodily pain, 
violent love, passion, or revenge, can keep the will steady and 
intent. In a conflict, the will is urged by the greatest present 
uneasiness. 

Looking at the innumerable solicitations to the will, and the 
way that our desires rise and fall by the working of our thoughts, 
Locke adds another condition of our Liberty of willing — namely, 
the power of suspending the prosecution of a desire, to give 
opportunity to examine all the consequences of the act : it is not 
a fault, but a perfection in our nature, to act on the final result 
of a fair examination. The constant determination towards our 
own happiness is no abridgment of liberty. A man could not be 
free, if his will were determined by anything but his own desire, 
guided by his own judgment. 

Spinoza denied free-will, because it was inconsistent with the 
nature of God, and with the laws to which human actions are sub- 
ject. In a certain sense, God has freedom., as acting from a neces- 
sity inherent in his nature. But man has not even this freedom ; 
his actions are determined by God. There is nothing really con- 
tingent. Contingency, free determination, disorder, chance, lie 
only in our ignorance. 

The supposed consciousness of freedom arises from a forgetfulness 
of the causes that dispose us to will and desire. Volitions are the 
varying appetites of the soul. When there is a conflict of passions, 
men hardly know what they wish ; but, in the absence of passion, 
the least impulse one way or another determines them. A volition 
implies memory, but memory is not in our power, so then volition 
cannot be. In dreams we make decisions as if awake, with the 
same consciousness of freedom ; are those fantastic decisions to be 
considered free ? Those who fancy that their soul decides freely, 
dream with their eyes open. Another explanation is that the 
undetermined will is the universal will abstracted from particular 
volitions. Although every actual volition has a cause, yet this 
abstract will is thought of as undetermined, for determinism is 
no part of the conception of volition. 

God is not the author of evil, because evil is nothing positive. 
Everything that is, is perfect. Any imperfection arises from our 
habit of forming abstract ideas, and judging of things thereby as 
if they were all susceptible of the perfection that belongs to the 
definition, and were imperfect in so far as they fell short of it. 
But the good and the bad are not on an equality, although they 
both express in their way the will of God. The good have more 
perfection in being more closely allied to God. 

The necessity of evil does not render punishment unj ust. The 
wicked, although necessarily wicked, are none the less on that 
account to be feared and destroyed. A wicked man may be excus- 
able, but this does not affect the treatment he must receive ; a man 
bitten by a mad dog is not blameworthy, but people have a right 
to put him to death. 

Collins has explained and defended the necessitarian doctrine 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — LEIBNITZ. 415 

in ' A Philosophical Enquiry concerning Human Liberty.' He 
accepts Locke's definition of liberty as ' a power in man to do as 
he wills or pleases.' His thesis is that every action is determined 
by the preceding causes. (1) Experience is not in favour of liberty. 
Many patrons of liberty have defined it in such a way as not to con- 
tradict necessity, or have conceded so much as to leave themselves 
no ground to stand upon. On the other hand, experience testifies 
that we are necessary agents, that our volitions are determined by 
causes ; and even the supporters of free-will acknowledge that we 
do not prefer the worse, in other words, do not follow the weaker 
motive. (2) Whatever has a beginning has a cause, and every 
cause is a necessary cause. The doctrine of free-will is, therefore, 
a contradiction of the law of causality. (3) Liberty is an imper- 
fection, and necessity an advantage and perfection. It is no per- 
fection to be able to choose one out of two or more indifferent 
things. Angels are more perfect than men, because they are 
necessarily determined to prefer good to evil. (4) The decrees of 
God are necessary causes of events. Foreordination and liberty 
are mutually subversive. (5) If man were not a necessary agent, 
determined by pleasure and pain, there would be no foundation 
for rewards and punishment. 

Leibnitz. 1. The Nature of Liberty and Necessity. Necessity 
is of two kinds — hypothetical and absolute. Hypothetical necessity 
is that laid upon future contingents by God's foreknowledge. 
This does not derogate from liberty. God's choice of the present 
from among possible worlds did not change, but only actualized, 
the free natures of his creatures. There is another distinction. 
Logical, Metaphysical, or Mathematical necessity depends upon 
the law of Identity or Contradiction ; while moral necessity 
depends on the law of Sufficient Reason, and is simply the mind 
choosing the best, or following the strongest inclination. The 
principle of sufficient Eeason affirms that every event has certain 
conditions, constituting the reason why it exists. God's per- 
fect nature requires that he should not act without reason, nor 
prefer a weaker reason to a stronger. This necessity is compatible 
with freedom in God ; so also in us. Motives do not impose upon 
us any absolute necessity, more than upon him. Without an in- 
clination to good, choice would be mere blind chance. In things 
absolutely indifferent, there can be no choice, election, or will; 
since choice must be founded on some reason or principle. A will, 
acting without any motive, is a fiction, chimerical and self-contra- 
dictory. 

2. Necessity and Fatalism. To the objection that necessity is 
identical with Fatalism, Leibnitz answers by distinguishing three 
kinds of fatalism. There is a Mahommedan fatalism, which sup- 
poses that if the effect is pre-determined, it happens without the 
cause. The fatalism of the Stoics taught men to be quiescent, 
for they were powerless to resist the course of things. There 
is a third kind of fatalism accepted by all Christians, admitting 
a certain destiny of things regulated by the providence of God. 



416 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

3. The influence of motives. Leibnitz compared the will to a 
balance, and motives to the weights in the scales. This simile 
was taken from Bayle to illustrate the inactivity of the will, when 
under the pressure of equal motives, and of its action when one pre- 
ponderated. Clarke objected to it on the ground that a balance 
is passive, while men are active beings. Leibnitz answered that 
the principle of sufficient reason was common to both agents and 
patients. He admits, however, that, strictly speaking, motives 
do not act on the mind as weights in a balance ; they are rather 
dispositions in virtue of which the mind acts. To say that the 
mind can prefer a weak motive to a strong one, implies that it 
has other dispositions than motives, by virtue of which it can 
accept or reject the motives ; whereas motives include all disposi- 
tions to act. The fear of a great pain weighs down the expecta- 
tion of a pleasure. In the conflict of two passions, the stronger 
is victorious, unless the other is aided by reason or by some con- 
curring passion. But generally a conflict of motives involves more 
than two ; so that a better comparison than the balance would be, 
a force tending in many directions, and acting in the line of least 
resistance. Air compressed in a glass receiver, finds its way out 
where the glass is weakest. 

Samuel Clarke affirmed the existence of a power of self- 
motion or self-determination, which, in all animate agents, is 
spontaneity, in moral agents, is liberty. It is a great error to 
regard the mind as passive, like a balance. • A free agent, when 
there is more than one perfectly reasonable way of acting, has 
still within itself, by virtue of its self-motive principle, a power 
of acting ; and it may have strong reasons not to forbear acting, 
when yet there may be no possible reason for preferring one way 
to another.' Leibnitz pointed out the contradiction here, for if 
the mind has good reasons, there is no indifference. A man never 
has a sufficient reason for acting, when he has not a sufficient 
reason to act in a definite manner. No action can be general or 
abstracted from its circumstances, but must always be executed in 
some particular manner. 

Clarke stakes the whole controversy upon the existence of this 
self-moving faculty. If man has not this power, then every human 
action is produced by some extrinsic cause ; either the motive, or 
some subtle matter, or some other being. If it be a motive, then 
either abstract notions {i.e. motives) have a real subsistence (i.e. 
are substances), or else what is not a substance can put a body in 
motion. It is unnecessary to follow him in the other alternatives. 

With reference to the action of motives, Clarke says the ques- 
tion is not whether a good or wise being cannot do evil or act 
unwisely, but whether the immediate physical cause of action be 
some sufficient reason acting on the agent, or the agent himself. 
This theory of self-motion has been severely criticized by Sir W. 
Hamilton. Clarke's definition, he observes, amounts only to the 
liberty of spontaneity, and not to liberty from necessity. Now, 
' the greatest spontaneity is the greatest necessity.' 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — EDWARDS. 417 

Jonathan Edwards vindicates the doctrine of philosophical 
necessity in his work on the ' Freedom of the "Will ' (1754) in the 
interest of Calvinistic theology. His treatise, however, consists 
almost exclusively of philosophical arguments. 

1. Edwards's own view. The will is that by which the mind 
chooses anything ; and we are so constituted that on the mind 
choosing or wishing a movement of the body, the movement fol- 
lows. The Will is determined by the strongest motive, and the 
strongest motive is the greatest apparent good. [By motive, he 
means the whole of what acts on the will.] Necessity is only a 
full and fixed connection between things ; moral necessity is 
simply the fixed connexion between motives and volitions. 
Liberty is a power to do as one pleases ; it is opposed to constraint 
and restraint. The other meanings ascribed to liberty are : (1) a 
Self-determining power, whereby the will causes its own volitions; 
(2) Indifference, or that, previous to volition, the mind is in equi- 
librium ; (3) Contingence, the denial of any fixed connection be- 
tween motives and volitions. These conceptions of liberty he 
proceeds to refute. 

" 2. Self-determination is inconsistent and inconceivable. If the 
will determines its own acts, it doubtless does so in the same way 
in which it produces bodily movements — by acts of volition. 
Hence every free volition is preceded by a prior volition ; and if 
this prior volition be free, it must be preceded by a prior volition, 
and so on in infinitum. Hence arises a contradiction. The first 
act of a series cannot be free, for it must have another before it ; 
if the first act is not free, none of the subsequent acts can be free. 
It may be urged in reply, that there is no prior act determining a 
free volition, but that the act of determining is the same with 
the act of willing. The effect of this reply is, that the free voli- 
tion is determined by nothing ; it is entirely uncaused. Instead, 
therefore, of saying the will is self-determined, the proper ex- 
pression would be indetermined. Indeterminism thus affirms that 
our volitions do not arise from any causes. It therefore contra- 
dicts the law of causality. Cause is sometimes defined as that 
which has a positive efficiency to produce an effect ; but, in this 
sense, the absence of the sun would not be the cause of the fall of 
dew. A cause is the reason or ground why an event happens so 
and not otherwise ; it is an antecedent firmly conjoined with its 
consequent. In this sense, everything that begins to be, must 
have a cause. This is a dictate of common sense, and the basis 
of all reasoning on things past, present, and to come. If things 
may exist without a cause, there is no possible proof for the 
existence of God. Nay more, we could be sure of nothing but 
what was present to our consciousness. 

Indeterminism is sometimes made to depend on the active 
nature of the soul. Material events may require causes, bat voli- 
tions do not depend on causes, or rather (for the sake of verbally 
saving causality) the soul is the cause of its volitions. Edwards 
answers, that this may explain why the soul acts at all, but not 

27 



418 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

why it acts in a particular manner. And, unless the soul produce 
diverse acts, it cannot produce diverse effects, otherwise the same 
cause, in the same circumstances, would produce different effects 
at different times. In order, however, to demonstrate the futility 
of the argument drawn from the activity of the soul, it is neces- 
sary to examine carefully the notions of Action and Passion. It is 
said, by Dr. Clarke, that a necessary agent is a self-contradiction. 
Action excludes a moving cause, because to be an effect is to be 
passive. This is to build a demonstration on an arbitrary defini- 
tion of a word. Edwards sums up the contradictions involved in 
the notion of activity as follows: — 'To their notion of action, 
these things are essential — viz., That it should be necessary, and 
not necessary ; that it should be from a cause, and no cause ; that 
it should be the fruit of choice or design, and not the fruit of 
choice or design ; that it should be the beginning of motion or 
exertion, and yet consequent on previous exertion ; that it should 
be before it is ; that it should spring immediately out of indiffer- 
ence, and yet be the effect of preponderation ; that it should be 
self- originated, and also have its original from something else/ 
Absurd and inconsistent with itself, this metaphysical idea of action 
is entirely different from the common notion. The usual meaning 
of action is bodily movement : less strictly, heat is said to act 
upon wax. According to usage, action never means self-deter- 
mination. Action may have a cause other than the agent, as 
easily as life may have a cause other than the living being. The 
same thing may be both cause and effect in respect of different 
objects. Metaphysicians have changed the meaning of the words 
' action' and c necessity,' but keep up the old attributes in spite of 
the new and distinct application of the term. 

3. Liberty of Indifference. The will is alleged to be able to 
choose between two things equally attractive to the mind. But 
there never is such a perfect equality. Suppose I wish to touch 
any one spot on a chess-board, I generally accomplish it by some 
such steps as the following : — I make first a general resolution to 
touch some one, then determine to select one by chance — to touch 
what is nearest or most in the eye at some moment, and lastly I 
fix upon some one selected under those conditions. But at no 
step is there any equilibrium of motives. Among several objects, 
some one will catch the eye; ideas are not equally strong in the 
mind at one moment, or if so, they do not long continue. It 
must be kept distinctly in view, that what the will is more imme- 
diately concerned with, is not the objects, but the acts to be done 
concerning them. The objects may appear equal, but among 
the acts to be done affecting them, one may be decidedly pre- 
ferable. 

If indifference is regarded as essential to liberty, several absurd 
consequences follow. Indifference is often sinful. It is a state 
in which a man is as ready to choose, as to avoid, sin. It is 
destroyed by the presence of any habitual bias, and such bias can 
be neither virtuous nor vicious. The nearer habits of virtue are 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — EDWARDS. 419 

to infallibility, the less are they free and praiseworthy. Indiffer- 
ence is inconsistent with regarding any disposition or quality of 
mind as either virtuous or vicious. So in proportion to the strength 
of a motive, liberty is destroyed. Hence moral suasion is opposed 
to freedom. Finally, a choice without motive, and for no end, 
can have neither prudence nor wisdom in it. 

4. Contingence is involved in liberty. But this cannot be, for 
no event happens without a cause. Hence events are necessarily 
connected with their causes, by which, however, Edwards means 
only that they invariably follow their causes. His definition of 
cause is correct ; his only error was in retaining the word 
' necessity' with its irrelevant and misleading associations. 

5. The influence of motives. It is generally allowed that no 
volition takes place without a motive ; but the mind, it is alleged, 
has the power of complying with the motive or not. This is a 
plain contradiction. How can the mind determine what motives 
shall influence it, and yet the motives be the ground or reason of 
its determination? Again, it is urged that volition does not 
follow the strongest motive. If not, then it must follow the 
weaker, that is, pro tanto, it acts without any motive. This is to 
contradict the law of cause and effect, and "was, Edwards con- 
ceived, a perfect reductio ad absurdum. He did not anticipate that 
any one would impugn the universality of cause and effect. 

6. Foreknowledge. The great point that Edwards sought to 
establish was that prescience involved as much necessity as pre- 
destination, and that, therefore, the extreme position of the Cal- 
vinists was as tenable as any that could be taken up by a theist. 
In the first place, it is evident from Scripture that God has a cer- 
tain foreknowledge of the voluntary actions of men. JSTow, if 
volitions were contingent events, they could not be foreknown, 
because nothing can be known without evidence, and for a con- 
tingent event no evidence can be produced. A contingent event 
is not self-evident, and it cannot be evident from its connexion 
with any other event, for connexion destroys contingence. Nor 
is it an admissible supposition that God may have ways of knowing 
that we cannot conceive of. For it is a contradiction to suppose 
an event known as certain, and, at the same time, as uncertain. 
Another evasion is, that knowledge can have no influence on the 
thing known. Granted, but prescience may prove that an event is 
certain, without being the cause of its certainty. Certainty of 
knowledge does not make an infallible connexion between things, 
but it pre-supposes such a connexion. Again, it is said that with 
God there is no distinction of before and after ; time is with him 
an eternal now. Edwards admits that there is no succession in 
God's knowledge, but observes that knowledge, whether before or 
after, implies the certainty of the thing known. If an event is 
known by him as certain, then it will most assuredly happen. 

7. Is liberty essential to morality ? The essence of virtue is 
supposed to consist, not in the nature of the acts of the will, but 
in their cause. But it is more consistent with common opinion to 



420 LIBEKTY AND NECESSITY. 

regard moral evil as a deformity in the nature of certain disposi- 
tions and volitions. Ingratitude is hateful, not on account of the 
badness of its cause, but on account of its inherent deformity. 
It is true that our bodily movements are not in themselves either 
virtuous or vicious, but only the volitions and dispositions that 
produce them. This relation is erroneously supposed to exist 
between our volitions and some inner determining volitions. But 
mankind do not refer praise and blame to any occult causes of 
the will ; they blame a man who does as he pleases, and who 
pleases to do wrong. When they ascribe an action to a man, they 
mean merely that the action is voluntary, not that it is self- 
determined. Their only conception of freedom is freedom from 
compulsion or restraint. They praise a man for his amiability, 
the gift of nature, as much as if it were the result of severe 
discipline. The will of God is necessarily good, but it is never- 
theless praiseworthy. Although necessity is, therefore, perfectly 
compatible with praise and blame, it is nevertheless easy to under- 
stand how the opposite opinion should be generally entertained. 
Constraint is the proper and original meaning of necessity. Now, 
constraint is totally inconsistent with punishment and reward. 
Hence arises a strong association between blamelessness and ne- 
cessity. When the word necessity is taken up by philosophers as 
the equivalent for certainty of connexion, the associated idea of 
blamelessness is carried insensibly and unwarily into the new mean- 
ing. But Edwards did not draw the obvious inference, that the 
word * necessity' should be discarded from the controversy. 

8. Practical Consequences. (1) Does the doctrine of necessity 
render efforts towards an end nugatory? This could only be 
said, if the doctrine affirmed, either that the event might follow 
without the means, or that the event might not follow, although 
the means was used. Does the doctrine of necessity effect any 
such rupture between means and ends ? On the contrary, the 
certainty of the connexion between means and ends is the doctrine 
itself; (2) Does necessity lead to atheism and licentiousness? 
Edwards retorts on Liberty the charge of Atheism. How can 
the existence of God be proved without the principle that every 
change must have a cause ? And how can it be maintained that 
every change has a cause, when the entire realm of volition is 
emancipated from causation ? As to the charge of licentiousness, 
Edwards points to the exemplary conduct of the Calvinists, in con- 
trast to the looseness that often coexists with Arminian doctrines. 

Price, contending with Priestley, followed the view brought 
forward by Dr, Clarke. He denned liberty as a power of self- 
motion, and took up the following positions. (1) All animals 
possess spontaneity, and therefore liberty. (2) Liberty does not 
admit of degrees ; between acting and not acting there is no 
middle course. (3) This liberty is possible. There must be some- 
where a power of beginning motion, and we are conscious of such 
a power in ourselves. (4) In our volitions, we are not acted upon. 
(5) Liberty does not exclude the operation of motives, The power 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — PRIESTLEY. 421 

of self-determination can never be excited without some view or 
design. But it is an intolerable absurdity to make our motives or 
ends the physical causes of action. Our ideas may be the occasion 
of our acting, but are certainly not mechanical efficients. 

Priestley, in his controversy with Price, maintained the 
following positions : — 

1. He denied that our consciousness is in favour of free- 
dom. All we believe is that we have power to do what we will or 
please. To will without a motive, or contrary to the influence of 
all the motives presented to the mind, is what no man can be con- 
scious of. The mind cannot choose without some inclination or 
preference for the thing chosen. To deny this, is to deny that 
every change must have a cause. 

2. Philosophical necessity is consistent with accountability. 
Punishment has an improving effect both on our own future 
conduct, and on the conduct of others ; this is the meaning of 
justness of punishment. To say that one is praiseworthy means 
that he is actuated by good principles, and is therefore an object 
of love, and a fit person to be made happy. 

3. Permission of JEvil. As regards God, there is no distinction 
between permitting and appointing evil. In the case of man, the 
difference is great, for his power of interference and control is 
limited. In creating any man, God must foresee and accept all 
the consequences. Whatever reasons can be produced to show why 
God permits evil, will be available to justify his appointing it. 

4. Remorse and Pardon. Priestley admits that it sounds harsh, 
but affirms it nevertheless to be true, that ' in all those crimes men 
reproach themselves with, God is the agent ; and that they are no 
more agents than a sword.' Actions may be referred to the per- 
sons themselves as secondary causes, but they must also be traced 
to the first cause. Mankind at first necessarily refer their actions 
to themselves, a conviction that becomes deeply rooted, before 
they begin to regard themselves as instruments in the hands of a 
superior agent. Self -applause and self-reproach have their origin 
in the narrower view, and cease when we refer our actions to the 
first great cause. The necessitarian believing that, strictly speak- 
ing, nothing goes wrong f whatever is, is rigid J, cannot accuse 
himself of wrong doing. He has, therefore, nothing to do with 
repentance, confession, or pardon. This state of feeling, however, 
is a high and rare attainment ; when the necessitarian mechani- 
cally refers his actions to himself, he will no doubt feel as others. 

This admission by Priestley that remorse is inconsistent with 
necessity, has been turned to great account by Eeid ; but although 
the statement is very unguarded, it contains a portion of the 
truth. We may look upon a person's conduct in two aspects — 
in its effects, or in its causes. In its effects, it may be very hostile 
to human happiness, or the reverse. From this point of view, 
resentment and approbation are the spontaneous response of feel- 
ing ; punishment and reward are clearly appropriate. On the 
other hand, we may confine our attention to the causes of the 



422 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

man's conduct — his circumstances, education, and opinions. In 
several ways, this tends to discourage angry feeling, and to arouse 
sympathy and pity. In the first place, we are looking away from 
the effects of the conduct, and the considerations that justify and 
require punishment ; in the next place, we may reflect that, in 
like circumstances, we might not have done better ourselves; 
then, the conduct may have resulted from a weak moral nature, 
in which case we are always more ready to pity than to punish; 
and, lastly, since we are at the scientific point of view, there is 
strongly suggested the conception of resistless sequence — a notion 
strictly applicable to many material phenomena, but incorrect 
as to human actions. 

5. Priestley considered that materialism, to which he sub- 
scribed, involved the doctrine of necessity. 

Reid has devoted a large part of his work on The Active 
Powers, to the discussion of the Liberty of Moral Agents. 

I. — The Nature of Liberty. He defines liberty to be a power 
over the determinations of one's Will. Necessity is when the will 
follows something involuntary in the state of mind, or something 
external. Moral liberty does not apply to all voluntary actions ; 
many such are done by instinct or habit, without reflection, and 
so without will. It is a power not enjoyed in infancy, but only 
in riper years. It extends as far as we are accountable; in 
short, freedom is the sine qua non of praise or blame. In order 
still farther to clear up the conception of liberty, Reid devotes 
two chapters to explain the notion of cause. Everything that 
changes must either change itself, or be changed by some other 
being. In the one case, it has active power, in the other case it is 
acted upon or passive. His definition of cause is, — that which has 
power to produce an effect. We are efficient causes in our deli- 
berate and voluntary actions. We cannot will deliberately without 
believing that the thing willed is in our power [we may, if we 
merely expect the effect to follow]. We have a conviction of 
power to produce motion in our own bodies. To be an efficient 
cause is to be a free agent ; a necessary agent is a contradiction in 
terms. In thus identifying freedom with power, Reid follows 
Clarke and Price, exposing himself to the refutation of Jonathan 
Edwards, not to mention the criticism of Sir W. Hamilton. 

II. — Arguments in Support of Free-will. 1. We have by our 
constitution, a natural conviction or belief, that we act freely. 
The existence of such a belief is admitted by some fatalists them- 
selves [Hamilton mentions Hommel, and also Lord Karnes, who, 
however, withdrew the incautious admission]. The very notion 
of active power must arise from our constitution. We see events, 
but we see no potency nor chain linking one to the other, and there- 
fore the notion of cause is not derived from external objects. Yet 
it is an unshaken conviction of the mind that every event has a 
cause that had power to produce it. (1) We are conscious of exer- 
cising power to produce some effect, and this implies a belief that 
we have power to produce the desired effect. [It, in truth, only 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — REID. 423 

implies a belief that the effect will certainly happen, if we wish it.] 
(2) Can any one blame himself for yielding to necessity? Eemorse 
implies a conviction that we could have done better. Eeid further 
explains what he means by the actions that are in our power. 
We have no conception of power that is not directed by the will. 
But there are many things that depend on our will that are not 
in our power. Madmen, idiots, infants, people in a violent rage, 
have not the power of self-government. Likewise, the violence 
of a motive, or an inveterate habit, diminishes liberty. 

2. Liberty is involved in accountability. To be accountable, a 
man must understand the law by which he is bound, and his obli- 
gations to obey it ; and he must have power to do what he is 
accountable for. So far as man's power over himself extends, so 
far is he accountable. Hence violent passion limits responsibility. 
It is said that to constitute an action criminal, it need only be 
voluntary. Eeid says, more is necessary, namely, moral liberty. 
For (1) the actions of brutes are voluntary, but not criminal. 
(2) So are the actions of young children. (3) Madmen have 
understanding and will, but no moral liberty, and hence are not 
criminal. (4) An irresistible motive palliates or takes away guilt. 

3. Man's power over his volitions is proved by the fact that he 
can prosecute a series of means towards an end. A plan of con- 
duct requires understanding to contrive and power to execute it. 
Now, if each volition in the series was produced not by the man 
himself, but by some cause acting necessarily upon him, there is 
no evidence that he contrived the plan. The cause that directed 
the determinations, must have understood the plan, and intended 
the execution of it. Motives could not have done it, for they have 
not understanding to conceive a plan. 

III.— Refutation of the Argument for Necessity, 1. The influence 
of motives. (1) Eeid allows that motives influence to action, but 
they do not act. Upon this, Sir W. Hamilton remarks that if 
motives influence to action, they co-operate in producing a certain 
effect upon the agent. They are thus, on Eeid's own view, 
causes, and efficient causes. It is of no consequence in the argu- 
ment, whether motives be said to determine a man to act, or to 
influence (that is to determine) him to determine himself to act. 
(2) Eeid goes on to say that it is the glory of rational beings to 
act according to the best motives. God can do everything ; it is 
his praise that he does only what is best. But according to 
Hamilton, this is just one of the insoluble contradictions in the 
question. If we attribute to the Deity the power of moral evil, 
we detract from his essential goodness ; and if, on the other hand, 
we deny him this power, we detract from his omnipotence. (3) Is 
there a motive in every action ? Eeid thinks not. Many trifling 
actions are done without any conscious motive. Stewart dis- 
agrees with Eeid in this remark ; and Hamilton observes : — 
' Can we coneeive any act of which there was not a sufficient 
cause, or concourse of causes, why the man performed it and 
no other? If not, call this cause, or these concauses, the 



424 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

motive, and there is no longer a dispute.' (4) It cannot be 
proved that when there is a motive on one side only, that 
motive must determine the action. Is there no such thing as 
wilfulness, caprice, or obstinacy ? But ' Are not those all ten- 
dencies, and fatal tendencies, to act or not to act?* (5) Does 
the strongest motive prevail ? If the test of the strongest 
motive is that it prevails, then the proposition is identical. 
The determination is made by the man, and not by the motive. 
4 But was the man determined by no motive to that deter- 
mination ? Was his specific volition to this or to that without a 
cause ? On the supposition that the sum of influences (motives, 
dispositions, tendencies) to volition A, is equal to 12, and the sum 
of influences to counter volition B, equal to 8, can we conceive that 
the determination of volition A should not be necessary ? "We can 
only conceive the volition B to be determined by supposing that 
the man creates (calls from non-existence into existence) a certain 
supplement of influences. But this creation as actual, or in itself, 
is inconceivable, and even to conceive the possibility of this incon- 
ceivable act, we must suppose some cause by which the man is 
determined to exert it. We thus, in thought, never escape deter- 
mination and necessity.' (6) It is very weak reasoning to infer from 
our power of predicting men's actions that they are necessarily 
determined by motives. Liberty is a power that men use accord- 
ing to their character. The wise use it wisely, the foolish, foolishly. 
(7) The doctrine of liberty does not render rewards and punish- 
ments of no effect. With wise men they will have their due 
effect, but not always with the foolish and vicious. 

2. The principle of sufficient Reason. Eeid makes a long 
criticism of this principle, as enounced by Leibnitz ; but all refer- 
ence to that may be omitted, since in so far as it applies to the 
present question, the principle is identical with the law of cause 
and effect. Eeid's answer is that the man is the cause of action, 
but this evasion, as we have seen, has been refuted by Hamilton. 

3. Every determination of the mind is foreseen by God, it is 
therefore necessary. This necessity may result in three ways : (1) 
a thing cannot be foreknown without being certain, or certain 
without being necessary. But there is no rule of reasoning from 
which it may be inferred that because an event necessarily shall 
be, therefore its production must be necessary. Its being certain 
does not determine whether it shall be freely or necessarily pro- 
duced. (2) An event must be necessary because it is foreseen. 
Not so, for knowledge has no effect upon the thing known. God 
foresees his own future actions, but his foresight does not make 
them necessary. (3) No free action can be foreseen. This would 
prevent God foreseeing his own actions. Reid admits that there 
is no knowledge of future contingent actions in man. The 
prescience of God must therefore differ, not only in degree but in 
kind from our knowledge. Although we have no such know- 
ledge, God may have. There is also a great analogy between the 
prescience of future contingents and the memory of past contin- 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — HAMILTON. 425 

gents. Hamilton refutes this assertion. A past contingent is a 
contradiction, in becoming past it forthwith becomes necessary — 
it cannot but be. * Now, so far is it from being true, as Keid soon 
after says, that every ' f argument to prove the impossibility of 
prescience (as the knowledge of future contingents) proves, with 
equal force, the impossibility of memory " (as the knowledge of 
past contingents), that the possibility of a memory of events as 
contingent was, I believe, never imagined by any philosopher — nor, 
in reality, is it by Eeid himself. And, in fact, one of the most 
insoluble objections to the possibility of a free agency, arises (on 
the admission that all future events are foreseen by God) from 
the analogy of prescience to memory, it being impossible for the 
human mind to reconcile the supposition that an event may or 
may not occur, and the supposition that one of these alternatives 
has been foreseen as certain.' 

Sir W. Hamilton occupies a peculiar position in regard to the 
present question. He demolishes all the chief popular arguments 
in favour of liberty^ and rests the defence on his own Law of 
the Conditioned. At the same time, he attributes an exaggerated 
importance to Free-will, as being not only the foundation of 
morality, but the only doctrine from which we can legitimately 
infer the existence of God. The phenomena that require a deity 
for their explanation are exclusively mental : the phenomena of 
matter, taken by themselves, would ground even an argument to 
his negation. Fate or necessity might account for the material 
world ; it is only because man is a free intelligence that a creator 
must be supposed endowed with free intelligence. 

Hamilton admits, what is shown by Edwards, that the con- 
ception of an undetermined will is inconceivable. He thus dis- 
poses of the argument that the person is the cause of his volitions. 
' But is the person an original undetermined cause of the deter- 
mination of his will ? If he be not, then is he not a free agent, 
and the scheme of Necessity is admitted. If he be, in the first 
place, it is impossible to conceive the possibility of this ; and, in 
the second, if the fact, though inconceivable, be allowed, it is im- 
possible to see how a cause, undetermined by any motive, can be a 
rational, moral, and accountable cause. There is no conceivable 
medium between Fatalism and Casualism : and the contradictory 
schemes of Liberty and Necessity themselves are inconceivable. 
For, as we cannot compass in thought an undetermined cause, — 
an absolute commencement — the fundamental hypothesis of the one ; 
so we can as little think an infinite series of determined causes — of 
relative commencements, — the fundamental hypothesis of the other. 
The champions of the opposite doctrines are thus at once resistless 
in assault, and impotent in defence. The doctrine of Moral 
Liberty cannot be made conceivable, for we can only conceive the 
determined and the relative. As already stated, all that can be 
done is to show, (1) That, for the fact of Liberty, we have, im- 
mediately or mediately, the evidence of consciousness; and (2), 
that there are, among the phenomena of mind, many facts which 



426 LIBERTY AND STECESSITY. 

we must admit as actual, but of whose possibility we are wholly 
unable to form any notion.' Again, * A determination by motives 
cannot, to our understanding, escape from necessitation. Nay, 
were we even to admit as true, what we cannot think as possible, 
still the doctrine of a motiveless volition would be only casualism ; 
and the free acts of an indifferent, are, morally and rationally, as 
worthless as the preordered passion of a determined, will.' 

From his own point of view, Hamilton is free to expose the 
inconsistency of those who accept the law of causality, and yet 
make the will an exception. If causality and freedom are 
equally positive dictates of consciousness, there can be no ground 
for subordinating one of these dictates to the other. But by re- 
garding causality as an impotence of thought, Hamilton thinks 
he can bring forward consciousness in favour of liberty. This fact 
of freedom is given either as an undoubted datum of consciousness, 
or as involved in an uncompromising lav/ of duty. 

In the last clause there is a reference to Kant's doctrine of 
Freedom. This will be stated in its proper connexion with his 
Ethical doctrine. [Ethical Systems.] 

J. S. Mill, in his Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Phi- 
losophy, has given a chapter to the Freedom of the Will. His 
polemic is chiefly against the theory of Sir W. Hamilton, whose 
attempt to create a prejudice in favour of his own peculiar views, 
by representing them as affording the only solid argument in sup- 
port of the existence of God, Mr. Mill characterizes as * not only 
repugnant to all the rules of philosophizing, but a grave offence 
against the morality of philosophic enquiry.' Both Hamilton and 
Mill are agreed upon the question at issue — namely, whether our 
volitions are emancipated from causation altogether. Both reject 
the evasion that ' I ' am the cause. 

I. The evidence of experience* Mr. Mill begins by conced- 
ing to Hamilton the inconceivability of an absolute com- 
mencement and an infinite regress. This double inconceivability 
applies, not only to volitions, but to all other events. Why 
then do we in regard to all events, except volitions, accept the 
alternative of regress ? Because the causation-hypothesis is 
established by experience. But there is the same evidence in the 
case of our volitions. The antecedents are desires, aversions, 
habits, dispositions, and outward circumstances. The connexion 
between those antecedents and volitions is proved by every one's 
experience of themselves, by our observation of others, by our 
predicting their actions, and by the results of statistics. Where 
prediction is uncertain, it is because of the imperfection of our 
knowledge ; we can predict more accurately the conduct of men, 

* The evidence of experience is admitted by Mr. Mansel to be in favour 
of necessity : — ' Were it not for the direct testimony of my own conscious- 
ness to my own freedom, I could regard human actions only as necessary 
links in the endless chain of phenomenal cause and effect.' Mansel's 
Metaphysics, p. 168. 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY— J. S. MILL. 427 

than the changes of the weather. Hence a volition follows its 
moral causes, as a physical event follows its physical causes. 
Whether it must do so, Mr. Mill professes himself to be ignorant, 
and therefore condemns the use of the word necessity, but he 
knows that it always does. 

2. The testimony of Consciousness, The evidence that decided 
Sir W. Hamilton was consciousness. We are either directly con- 
scious of freedom, or indirectly through moral obligation. Mr. Mill 
examines first, whether we are conscious of free-will, whether 
before decision, we are conscious of being able to decide either 
way. Properly speaking, this is a fact we cannot possibly be 
conscious of, as we are conscious only of what is, not of what will 
be. We know we can do a thing only by doing it. The belief in 
freedom must, therefore, be an interpretation of past experience. 
This internal feeling of freedom implies that we could have decided 
the other way ; but, the truth is, not unless we preferred that 
way. WTien we imagine ourselves acting differently from what 
we did, we think of a change in the antecedents, as by knowing 
something that we did not know. Mr. Mill therefore altogether 
disputes the assertion that we are conscious of being able to act in 
opposition to the strongest present desire or aversion. 

3. Accountability. Mr. Mill then examines whether moral 
responsibility involves freedom from causation. Responsibility 
means either that we expect to be punished for certain acts, or 
that we should deserve punishment for those acts. The first 
alternative may be thrown out of account. The question then is, 
whether free-will is involved in the justness of punishment. In 
this discussion, Mr. Mill assumes no particular theory of morals ; it 
is enough that a difference between right and wrong be admitted, 
and a natural preference for the right. Whoever does wrong 
becomes a natural object of active dislike, and perhaps of punish- 
ment. The liability of the wrong-doer to be thus called to 
account has probably much to do with the feeling of being 
accountable. Oriental despots and persons of a superior caste 
show not the least feeling of accountability to their inferiors. 
Moreover, if there were a race of men, as mischievous as 
lions and tigers, we should treat them precisely as we treat wild 
beasts, although they acted necessarily ; so that the most stringent 
form of fatalism is not inconsistent with putting a high value on 
goodness, nor with the existence of approbation and penalties. 
The real question, however, is — Would the punishment be just ? 
Is it just to punish a man for what he cannot help ? Certainly it 
is, if punishment is the only means by which he can be enabled 
to help it. Punishment is inflicted as a means towards an end, 
but if there is no efficacy in the means to procure the end, that is to 
say, if our volitions are not determined by motives, then punish- 
ment is without justification. If an end is justifiable, the sole and 
necessary means to that end must be justifiable. Now, the Ne- 
cessitarian Theory proceeds upon two ends, — the benefit of the 
offender himself, and the protection of others. To punish a child 



428 LIBEKTY AND NECESSITY. 

for its benefit is no more unjust than to administer medicine. In 
the defence of just rights, punishment must also be just. The 
feeling of accountability is then nothing more than the knowledge 
that punishment will be j us t . Nor is this a petitio principii. Mr. Mill 
considers himself entitled to assume the reality of moral distinc- 
tions, such reality not depending on any theory of the will. If this 
account should not be considered sufficient, how can we justify the 
punishment of crimes committed in obedience to a perverted con- 
science ? Eavaillac and Balthasar Gerard regarded themselves as 
heroic martyrs. No person capable of being operated upon by the 
fear of punishment, will ever feel punishment for wrong-doing to 
be unjust. 

4. Necessity is not Fatalism. The doctrine of Necessity is clearly 
distinguishable from Fatalism. Pure fatalism holds that our 
actions do not depend on our desires. A superior power overrides 
our wishes, and bends us according to its will. Modified fatalism 
proceeds upon the determination of our will by motives, but holds 
that our character is made for us and not by us, so that we are not 
responsible for our actions, and should in vain attempt to alter 
them. The true doctrine of causation holds that in so far as our 
character is amenable to moral discipline, we can improve it, if we 
desire. According to Mr. Mansel, such a theory of moral causation 
is really fatalism. Yet Kant held that the capability of predict- 
ing our actions does not destroy freedom : it is only in the forma- 
tion of our character that we are free; and he almost admits 
that our actions necessarily follow from our character. But, in 
truth, the volitions tending to improve our character are as 
capable of being predicted as any voluntary actions. And neces- 
sity means only this possibility of being foreseen, so that we 
are no more free in the formation of our character, than in our 
subsequent volitions. 

5. The influence of Motives. Mr. Mansel, following Eeid, has 
denied that the strongest motive prevails, since there is no test of 
the strength of a motive but its ultimate prevalence. But (1) the 
strongest motive means the motive strongest in relation to pleasure 
and pain. (2) Even if the test referred to was the will, the pro- 
position would still not be unmeaning. We say of two weights in a 
pair of scales, that the heavier will lift the other up ; although we 
mean by the heavier only the weight that will lift the other up. 
This proposition implies that in most cases there is a heavier, and 
that this is always the same one, not one or the other, as it may 
happen. So also if there be motives uniformly followed by 
certain volitions, the free-will theory is not saved. 



ETHICS. 



PAET I. 

THE THEORY OF ETHICS, 



CHAPTEE I. 
PRELIMINARY VIEW OF ETHICAL QUESTIONS. 

As a preface to the account of the Ethical Systems, and a 
principle of arrangement, for the better comparing of them, 
we shall review in order the questions that arise in the dis- 
cussion. 

I. First of all is the question as to the Ethical Standard. 
What, in the last resort, is the test, criterion, umpire, appeal, 
or Standard, in determining Right and Wrong ? In the con- 
crete language of Paley, Why am I obliged to keep my word ? 
The answer to this is the Theory of Right and Wrong, the 
essential part of every Ethical System. 

We may quote the leading answers, as both explaining 
and summarizing the chief question of Ethics, and more espe- 
cially of Modern Ethics. 

1. It is alleged that the arbitrary Will of the Deity, as 
expressed in the Bible, is the ultimate standard. On this 
view anything thus commanded is right, whatever be its conse- 
quences, or however it may clash with our sentiments and 
reasonings. 

2. It was maintained by Hobbes, that the Sovereign, 
acting under his responsibility to God, is the sole arbiter of 
Right and Wrong. As regards Obligatory Morality, this 



430 PRELIMINARY VIEW OF ETHICAL QUESTIONS. 

seems at first sight an identical proposition ; morality is an- 
other name for law and sovereignty. In the view of Hobbes, 
however, the sovereign shonld be a single person, of absolute 
authority, humanly irresponsible, and irremoveable ; a type of 
sovereignty repudiated by civilized nations. 

3. It has been held, in various phraseology, thab a certain 
fitness, suitability, or propriety in actions, as determined by our 
Understanding or Reason, is the ultimate test. When a man 
keeps his word, there is a certain congruity or consistency 
between the action and the occasion, between the making of 
a promise and its fulfilment ; and wherever such congruity 
is discernible, the action is right. This is the view of Cud- 
worth, Clarke, and Price. It may be called the Intellectual 
or Rational theory. 

A special and more abstract form of the same theory is 
presented in the dictum of Kant — ' act in such a way that 
your conduct might be a law to all beings/ 

4. It is contended, that the human mind possesses an in- 
tuition or instinct, whereby we feel or discern at once the 
right from the wrong ; a view termed the doctrine of the 
Moral Sense, or Moral Senthrent. Besides being sup- 
ported by numerous theorizers in Ethics, this is the prevailing 
and popular doctrine ; it underlies most of the language of 
moral suasion. The difficulties attending the stricter inter- 
pretation of it have led to various modes of qualifying and 
explaining it, as will afterwards appear. Shaftesbury and 
Hutcheson are more especially identified with the enunciation 
of this doctrine in its modern aspect. 

5. It was put forth by Mandeville that Self-interest is the 
only test of moral rightness. Self-preservation is the first 
law of being ; and even when we are labouring for the good of 
others, we are still having regard to our own interest. 

6. The theory called Utility, and Utilitarianism, supposes 
that the well-being or happiness of mankind is the sole end, 
and ultimate standard of morality. The agent takes account 
both of his own happiness and of the happiness of others, 
subordinating, on proper occasions, the first to the second. 
This theory is definite in its opposition to all the others, but 
admits of considerable latitude of view within itself. Stoicism 
and Epicureanism are both included in its compass. 

The two last-named theories — Self-interest, and Utility or 
the Common Weil-Being, have exclusive regard to the con- 
sequences of actions ; the others assign to consequences a 
subordinate position. The terms External and Dependent 



PSYCHOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 431 

are also used to express the reference to Happiness as the 
end : Internal and Independent are the contrasting epithets. 

II. Ethical Theory embraces certain questions of pure 
Psychology. 

1. The Psychological nature of Conscience, the Moral 
Sense, or by whatever name we designate the faculty of dis- 
tinguishing right and wrong, together with the motive power 
to follow the one and eschew the other. That such a faculty 
exists is admitted. The question is, what is its place and 
origin in the mind ? 

On the one side, Conscience is held to be a unique and 
ultimate power of the mind, like the feeling of Resistance, the 
sense of Taste, or the consciousness of Agreement. On the 
other side, Conscience is viewed as a growth or derivation 
from other recognized proporties of the mind. The Theory of 
the Standard (4) called the doctrine of the Moral Sense, pro- 
ceeds upon the first view ; on that theory, the Standard and 
the Faculty make properly but one question. All other 
theories are more or less compatible with the composite or 
derivative nature of Conscience ; the supporters of Utility, in 
particular, adopt this alternative. 

2. A second Psychological question, regarded by many 
(notably by Kant) as vitally implicated in Moral Obligation, 
is the Freedom of the Will. The history of opinion on this 
subject has been in great part already given. 

3. Thirdly, It has been debated, on Psychological grounds, 
whether our Benevolent actions (which all admit) are ulti- 
mately modes of self-regard, or whether there be, in the 
human mind, a source of purely Disinterested conduct. The 
first view, or the reference of benevolence to Self, admits 
of degrees and varieties of statement. 

(1) It may be held that in performing good actions, we 
expect and obtain an immediate reward fully equivalent 
to the sacrifice made. Occasionally we are rewarded in 
kind ; but the reward most usually forthcoming (according to 
Mandeville), is praise or flattery, to which the human mind 
is acutely sensitive. 

(2) Our constitution may be such that we are pained by 
the sight of an object in distress, and give assistance, to 
relieve ourselves of the pain. This was the view of Hobbes ; 
and it is also admitted by Mandeville as a secondary motive. 

(3) We may be so formed as to derive enjoyment from 
the performance of acts of kindness, in the same immediate 
way that we are gratified by warmth, flowers, or music ; we 



432 PRELIMINARY VIEW OF ETHICAL QUESTIONS. 

should thus be moved to benevolence by an intrinsic pleasure, 
and not bj extraneous consequences. 

Bentham speaks of the pleasures and the pains of Benevo- 
lence, meaning that we derive pleasure from causing pleasure 
to others, and pain from the sight of pain in others. 

(4) It may be affirmed that, although we have not by 
nature any purely disinterested impulses, these are generated 
in us by associations and habits, in a manner similar to the 
conversion of means into final ends, as in the case of money. 
This is the view propounded by James Mill, and by Mackintosh. 

Allowance being made for a certain amount of fact in 
these various modes of connecting Benevolence with self, it is 
still maintained in the present work, as by Butler, Hume, 
Adam Smith, and others, that human beings are (although 
very unequally) endowed with a prompting to relieve the 
pains and add to the pleasures of others, irrespective of all 
self-regarding considerations ; and that such prompting is 
not a product of associations with self. 

In the ancient world, purely disinterested conduct was 
abundantly manifested in practice, although not made promi- 
nent in Ethical Theory. The enumeration of the Cardinal 
Virtues does not expressly contain Benevolence ; but under 
Courage, Self-sacrifice was implied. Patriotic Self-devotion, 
Love, and Friendship were virtues highly cultivated. In 
Cicero, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius, there is a recognition of 
general Benevolence. 

The two heads now sketched — The Standard and the 
Psychology of our Moral nature — almost entirely exhaust 
modern Ethics. Smith, Stewart, and Mackintosh agree in 
laying down as the points in dispute these two : — First, What 
does virtue consist in ? Secondly, What is the power or 
faculty of the mind that discovers and enforces it ? 

These two positions, however, are inadequate as regards 
Ancient Ethics. For remedying the deficiency, and for bring- 
ing to light matters necessary to the completeness of an 
Ethical survey, we add the following heads : — 

III. The Theory of what constitutes the Supreme End of 
Life, the Bonum or the Summum Bonum. The question as to 
the highest End has divided the Ethical Schools, both ancient 
and modern. It was the point at issue between the Stoics 
and the Epicureans. That Happiness is not the highest end 
has been averred, in modern times, by Butler and others : the 
opposite position is held by the supporters of Utility. What 
may be called the severe and ascetic systems (theoretically) 



CLASSIFICATION OF DUTIES. 433 

refuse to sanction any pursuit of happiness or pleasure, except 
through virtue, or duty to others. The view practically pro- 
ceeded upon, now and in most ages, is that virtue discharges 
a man's obligations to his fellows, which being accomplished, 
he is then at liberty to seek what pleases himself. (For the 
application of the laws of mind to the theory of Happiness, 
see Appendix C.) 

IVrThe Classification of Duties is characteristic of differ- 
ent systems and different authors. The oldest scheme is the 
Four Cardinal Virtues — Prudence, Courage, Temperance, 
Justice. The modern Christian moralists usually adopt the 
division — Duties to God, to Others, to Self. 

Moreover, there are differences in the substance of Morality 
itself, or the things actually imposed. The code under Chris- 
tianity has varied both from Judaism and from Paganism. 

V.-The relationship of Ethics to Politics is close, while 
the points of difference of the two are also of great import- 
ance. In Plato the two subjects were inseparable ; and in 
Aristotle, they were blended to excess. Hobbes also joined 
Ethics and Politics in one system. (See Chap, ii., § 3.) 

VI.- The relation of Ethics to Theology is variously repre- 
sented in modern systems. The Fathers and the Schoolmen 
accepted the authority of the Bible chiefly on tradition, and 
did not venture to sit in judgment on the substance of the 
revelation. They, therefore, rested their Ethics exclusively 
on the Bible ; or, at most, ventured upon giving some mere 
supplement of its precepts. 

Others, in more modern times, have considered that the 
moral character of a revelation enters into the evidence in its 
favour ; whence, morality must be considered as independent, 
and exclusively human, in its origin. Ifc would be reasoning 
in a circle to derive the moral law from the bible, and then to 
prove the bible from the moral law. 

Religion superadds its own sanction to the moral duties, 
so far as adopted by it ; laying especial stress upon select pre- 
cepts. It likewise calls into being a distinct code of duties, 
the religious duties strictly so called ; which have no force 
except with believers. The ' duties to God/ in the modern 
classification, are religious, as distinguished from moral 
duties. 



28 



434 THE ETHICAL STANDAED. 



CHAPTEE II 
THE ETHICAL STANDARD. 

1. Ethics, or Morality, is a department of Practice ; 
and, as with other practical departments, is defined by- 
its End. 

Ethics is not mere knowledge or speculation, like the 
sciences of Astronomy, Physiology, or Psychology ; it is 
knowledge applied to practice, or useful ends, like Navigation, 
Medicine, or Politics. Every practical subject has some end 
to be served, the statement of which is its definition in the 
first instance. Navigation is the applying of different kinds 
of knowledge, and of a variety of devices, to the end of sailing 
the seas. 

2. The Ethical End is a certain portion of the welfare 
of human beings living together in society, realized through 
rules of conduct duly enforced. 

The obvious intention of morality is the good of mankind. 
The precepts — do not steal, do not kill, fulfil agreements, 
speak truth — whatever other reasons may be assigned for them, 
have a direct tendency to prevent great evils that might other- 
wise arise in the intercourse of human beings. 

Farther, the good aimed at by Ethics is attained by rules 
of acting, on the part of one human being to another ; and, 
inasmuch as these rules often run counter to the tendencies 
of the individual mind, it is requisite to provide adequate in- 
ducements to comply with them. 

The Ethical End is what is otherwise jcalled the Standard, 
test, or criterion, of Right and Wrong. The leading contro- 
versy of Morals is centered in this point. 

3. The Rules of Ethics, termed also Law, Laws, the 
Moral Law, are of two kinds : — 

The first are rules imposed under a Penalty for ne- 
glect, or violation. The penalty is termed Punishment : 
the imposing party is named Government, or Authority; 
and the rules so imposed and enforced, are called Laws 
proper, Morality proper, Obligatory Morality, Duty. 



MORAL RULES ENFORCED BY PENALTIES. 435 

4 The second are rules whose only external support is 
Rewards ; constituting Optional Morality, Merit, Virtue, 
or Nobleness. 

Moral duties are a set of rules, precepts, or prescriptions, 
for the direction of human conduct in a certain sphere or pro- 
vince. These rules are enforced by two kinds of motives, 
requiring to be kept distinct. 

I.- One class of rules are made compulsory by the infliction 
of pain, in the case of violation or neglect. The pain so in- 
flicted is termed a Penalty, or Punishment ; it is one of the 
most familiar experiences of all human beings living in 
society. 

The Institution that issues Rules of this class, and inflicts 
punishment when they are not complied with, is termed Go- 
vernment, or Authority ; all its rules are authoritative, or 
obligatory ; they are Laws strictly so called, Laws proper. 
Punishment, Government, Authority, Superiority, Obligation, 
Law, Duty, — define each other ; they are all different modes 
of regarding the same fact. 

Morality is thus in every respect analagous to Civil Go- 
vernment, or the Law of the Land. Nay, farther, it squares, 
to a very great extent, with Political Authority. The points 
where the two coincide, and those where they do not coincide, 
may be briefly stated : — 

(1) All the most essential parts of Morality are adopted 
and carried out by the Law of the Land. The rules for pro- 
tecting person and property, for fulfilling contracts, for per- 
forming reciprocal duties, are rules or laws of the State ; and 
are enforced by the State, through its own machinery. The 
penalties inflicted by public authority constitute what is called 
the Political Sanction ; they are the most severe, and the most 
strictly and dispassionately administered, of all penalties. 

(2) There are certain Moral duties enforced, not by 
public and official authority, but by the members of the com- 
munity in their private capacity. These are sometimes called 
the Laws of Honour, because they are punished by withdraw- 
ing from the violator the honour or esteem of his fellow- 
citizens. Courage, Prudence as regards self, Chastity, Ortho- 
doxy of opinion, a certain conformity in Tastes and Usages, — - 
are all prescribed by the mass of each community, to a greater 
or less extent, and are insisted on under penalty of social dis- 
grace and excommunication. This is the Social or the Popu- 
lar Sanction. The department so marked out, being distinct 



436 THE ETHICAL STANDARD. 

from the Political sphere, is called, by Austin, Positive 
Morality, or Morality proper. 

Public opinion also cbiraes in with the Law^ and adds its 
own sanction to the legal penalties for offences : unless the 
law happens to be in conflict with the popular sentiment. 
Criminals, condemned by the law, are additionally punished 
by social disgrace. 

(3) The Law of the Land contains many enactments, be- 
sides the Moral Code and the machinery for executing it. 
The Province of government passes beyond the properly pro- 
tective function, and includes many institutions of public con- 
venience, which are not identified with right and wrong. 
The defence from external enemies ; the erection of works of 
public utility ; the promotion of social improvements, — are 
all within the domain of the public authority.* 

II.- The second class of Rules are supported, not by penal- 
ties, but by Rewards. Society, instead of punishing men for 
not being charitable or benevolent, praises and otherwise 
rewards them, when they are so. Hence, although Morality 
inculcates benevolence, this is not a Law proper, it is not 
obligatory, authoritative, or binding ; it is purely voluntary, 
and is termed merit, virtuous and noble conduct. 

In this department, the members of the community, in 
their unofficial capacity, are the chief agents and administra- 
tors. The Law of the Land occupies itself with the enforce- 
ment of its own obligatory rules, having at its command a 
perfect machinery of punishment. Private individuals ad- 

* Duties strictly so called, the department of obligatory morality, en- 
forced by punishment, may be exemplified in the following classified 
summary : — 

Under the Legal Sanction, are included ; (A) Forbearance from 
(specified) injuries; as (a) Intentional injury — crimes, (b) Injury not inten- 
tional — wrongs, repaired by Damages or Compensation. (B) The ren- 
dering of services ; (a) Fulfilling contracts or agreements ; (b) Recipro- 
cating anterior services rendered, though not requested, as in filial duty ; 
(c) Cases of extreme or superior need, as parental duty, relief of destitution. 

Under the Popular Sanction are created duties on such points as the 
following: — (1) The Etiquette of small societies or coteries. (2) Reli- 
gious orthodoxy ; Sabbath observance. (3) Unchastity ; violations of the 
etiquette of the sexes, Immodesty, and whatever endangers chastity, 
especially in women. (4) Duties of parents to children, and of children 
to parents, beyond the requirements of the law, (5) Suicide : when only 
attempted, the individual is punished, when carried out, the relatives. 
(6) Drunkenness, and neglect of the means of self-support. (7) Gross 
Inhumanity. In all these cases the sanction, or punishment, is social ; 
and is either mere disapprobation or dislike, not issuing in overt acts, or 
exclusion from fellowship and the good offices consequent thereon. 



MORAL RULES SUPPORTED BY REWARDS. 437 

minister praise, honour, esteem, approbation, and reward. In 
a few instances, the Government dispenses rewards, as in 
the bestowal of office, rank, titles, and pensions, but this 
function is exceptional and limited. 

The conduct rewarded by Society is chiefly resolvable into 
Beneficence. Whoever is moved to incur sacrifices, or to go 
through labours, for the good of others, is the object, not 
merely of gratitude from the persons benefited, but; of appro- 
bation from society at large. 

Any remarkable strictness or fidelity in the discharge of 
duties properly so called, receives general esteem. Even in 
matters merely ceremonial, if importance be attached to 
them, sedulous and exact compliance, being the distinction of 
the few, will earn the approbation of the many.* 

5. The Ethical End, or Morality, as it has been, is 
founded partly on Well-being, or Utility : and partly on 
Sentiment. 

The portions of Morality, having in view the prevention of 
human misery and the promotion of human happiness, are 
known and obvious. They are not the whole of Morality as 
it has been. 

* Optional Morality, the Morality of Reward, is exemplified as fol- 
lows : — 

(A) A liberal performance of duties properly so called, (a) The 
support of aged parents ; this, though to a certain extent a legal duty, 
is still more a virtue, being stimulated by the approbation of one's fel- 
lows. The performance of the family duties generally is the subject of 
commendation, (b) The payment of debts that cannot be legally re- 
covered, as in the case of bankrupts after receiving their discharge. 

These examples typify cases (1) where no definite law is laid down, 
or where the law is content with a minimum ; and (2) where the law is 
restrained by its rules of evidence or procedure. Society, in such cases, 
steps in and supplies a motive in the shape of reward. 

(B) Pure Virtue, or Beneficence ; all actions for the benefit of others 
without stipulation,, and without reward ; relief of distress, promotion cf 
the good of individuals or of society at large. The highest honours of 
society are called into exercise by the highest services. 

Benthanrs principle of the claims of superior need cannot be fully 
carried out, (although he conceives it might, in some cases), by either the 
legal or the popular sanction. Thus, the act of the good Samaritan, the 
rescue of a ship's crew from drowning, could not be exacted ; the law can- 
not require heroism. It is of importance to remark, that although Duty 
and Nobleness, Punishment and Reward, are in their extremes unmis- 
takably contrasted, yet there may be a margin of doubt or ambiguity 
(like the passing of day into night). Thus, expressed approbation, 
generally speaking, belongs to Reward ; yet, if it has become a thing of 
course, the withholding of it operates as a Punishment or a Penalty. 



438 THE ETHICAL STANDARD. 

Sentiment, caprice, arbitrary liking or disliking, are 
names for states of feeling that do not necessarily arise from 
their objects, but may be joined or disjoined by education, 
custom, or the power of the will. The revulsion of mind, 
on the part of the Jews, against eating the pig, and on our 
own part, as regards horse flesh, is not a primitive or natural 
sensibility, like the pain of hunger, or of cold, or of a musical 
discord ; it is purely artificial ; custom has made it, and 
could unmake it. The feeling of fatigue from overwork is 
natural ; the repugnance of caste to manual labour is facti- 
tious. The dignity attached to the military profession, and 
the indignity of the office of public executioner, are capricious, 
arbitrary, and sentimental. Our prospective regard to the 
comforts of our declining years points to a real interest ; our 
feelings as to the disposal of the body after death are purely 
factitious and sentimental. Such feelings are of the things 
in our own power ; and the grand mistake of the Stoics was 
their viewing all good and evil whatever in the same light. 

It is an essential part of human liberty, to permit each, 
person to form and to indulge these sentiments or caprices ; 
although a good education should control them with a view 
to our happiness on the whole. But, when any individual 
liking or fancy of this description is imposed as a law upon 
the entire community, it is a perversion and abuse of power, 
a confounding of the Ethical end by foreign admixtures. 
Thus, to enjoin authoritatively one mode of sepulture, punish- 
ing all deviations from that, could have nothing to do with 
the preservation of the order of society. In such a matter, 
the interference of the state in modern times, has regard to 
the detection of crime in the matter of life and death, and to 
the evils arising from the putrescence of the dead. 

6. The Ethical End, although properly confined to 
Utility, is subject to still farther limitations, according to 
the view taken of the Province of Moral Government, or 
Authority. 

Although nothing should be made morally obligatory but 
what is generally useful, the converse does not hold ; many 
kinds of conduct are generally useful, but not morally obliga- 
tory. A certain amount of bodily exercise in the open air 
every day would be generally useful ; but neither the law of 
the land nor public opinion compels it. Good roads are works 
of great utility ; it is not every one's duty to make them. 

The machinery of coercion is not brought to bear upon 



DIFFERENCE OF BEING AND WELL-BEING. 439 

every conceivable utility. It is principally reserved, when 
not abused, for a select class of utilities. 

Some utilities are indispensable to the very existence of 
men in society. The primary moral duties must be observed 
to some degree, if men are to live together as men, and not to 
roam at large as beasts. The interests of Security are the 
first and most pressing concern of human society. Whatever 
relates to this has a surpassing importance. Security is 
contrasted with Improvement ; what relates to Security is 
declared to be Eight ; what relates to Improvement is said to 
be Expedient ; both are forms of Utility, but the one is press- 
ing and indispensable, the other is optional. The same differ- 
ence is expressed by the contrasts — Being and Well-being ; 
Existence and Prosperous Existence ; Fundamentals or Essen- 
tials and Circumstantials. That the highway robber should 
be punished is a part of Being jj that the highways should be in 
good repair, is a part of Well-being. That Justice should be 
done is Existence ; that farmers and traders should give in to 
government the statistics of their occupation, is a means to 
Prosperous Existence. # 

It is proper to advert to one specific influence in moral enact- 
ments, serving to disguise the Ethical end, and to widen the dis- 
tinction between morality as it has been, and morality as it ought 
to be. The enforcing of legal and moral enactments demands a 
power of coercion, to be lodged in the hands of certain persons ; 
the possession of which is a temptation to exceed the strict 
exigencies of public safety, or the common welfare. Probably 
many of the whims, fancies, ceremonies, likings and antipathies, 
that have found their way into the moral codes of nations, have 
arisen from the arbitrary disposition of certain individuals happen- 
ing to be in authority at particular junctures. Even the general 
community, acting in a spontaneous manner, imposes needless 
restraints upon itself, delighting more in the exercise of power, 
than in the freedom of individual action. 

* The conditions that regulate the authoritative enforcement of 
actions, are exhaustively given in works on Jurisprudence, but they do 
not all concern Ethical Theory. The expedience of imposing a rule 
depends on the importance of the object compared with the cost of the 
machinery. A certain line of conduct may be highly beneficial, but may 
not be a fit case for coercion. For example, the law can enforce only a 
minimum of service : now, if the case be such that a minimum is useless, 
as in helping a ship in distress, or in supporting aged parents, it is much 
better to leave the case to voluntary impulses, seconded by approbation 
or reward. Again, an offence punished by law must be, in its nature, 
definable ; which makes a difficulty in such cases as insult, and defamation, 
and many species of fraud. Farther, the offence must be easy of detection, 
so that the vast majority of offenders may not escape. This limits the 
action of the law in unchastity. 



440 THE ETHICAL STANDARD. 

7. Morality, in its essential parts, is * Eternal and Im- 
mutable ;' in other parts, it varies with Custom. 

(1) The rules for protecting one man from another, for 
enforcing justice, and the observance of contracts, are essen- 
tial and fundamental, and may be styled ' Eternal and Im- 
mutable/ The ends to be served require these rules ; no 
caprice of custom could change them without sacrificing those 
ends. They are to society what food is to individual life, or 
sexual intercourse and mother's care to the continuance of the 
race. The primary moralities could not be exchanged for rules 
enacting murder, pillage, injustice, un veracity, repudiation of 
engagements; because under these rules, human society would 
fall to pieces. 

(2) The manner of carrying into effect these primary 
regulations of society, varies according to Custom. In some 
communities the machinery is rude and imperfect; while 
others have greatly improved it. The Greeks took the lead 
in advancing judicial machinery, the Romans followed. 

In the regulations not essential to Being, but important to 
"Well-being, there has prevailed the widest discrepancy of 
usage. The single department relating to the Sexes is a suffi- 
cient testimony on this head. ]STo one form of the family is 
indispensable to the existence of society ; yet some forms are 
more favourable to general happiness than others. But 
which form is on the whole the best, has greatly divided 
opinion; and legislation has varied accordingly. The more 
advanced nations have adopted compulsory monogamy, thereby 
giving the prestige of their authority in favour of that system. 
But it cannot be affirmed that the joining of one man to one 
woman is a portion of - Eternal and Immutable Morality.' 

Morality is an Institution of society, but not an arbitrary 
institution. 

8. Before adducing the proofs in support of the posi- 
tion above assumed, namely, that Utility or Human 
Happiness, with certain limitations, is the proper criterion 
of Morality, it is proper to enquire, what sort of evidence 
the Ethical Standard is susceptible of. 

Hitherto, the doctrine of Utility has been assumed, in 
order to be fully stated. We must next review the evidence 
in its favour, and the objections urged against it. It is desir- 
able, however, to ask what kind of proof should be expected 
on such a question. 



WHAT IS THE PROOF OF THE STANDARD ? 441 

In the Speculative or Theoretical sciences, we prove a 
doctrine by referring it to some other doctrine or doctrines, 
until we come at last to some assumption that must be 
rested in as ultimate or final. We can prove the propositions 
of Euclid, the law of gravitation, the law of atomic propor- 
tions, the law of association; we cannot prove our present 
sensations, nor can we demonstrate that what has been, will 
be. The ultimate data must be accepted as self-evident; 
they have no higher authority than that mankind generally 
are disposed to accept them. 

In the practical Sciences, the question is not as to a prin- 
ciple of the order of nature, but as to an end of human action. 
There may be derived Ends, which are susceptible of demon- 
strative proof; but there must also be ultimate Ends, for 
which no proof can be offered ; they must be received as 
self-evident, and their sole authority is the person receiving 
them. In most of the practical sciences, the ends are derived; 
the end of Medicine is Health, which is an end subsidiary 
to the final end of human happiness. So it is with Naviga- 
tion, with Politics, with Education, and others. In all of them, 
we recognize the bearing upon human welfare, or happiness, 
as a common, comprehensive, and crowning end. On the 
theory of Utility, Morals is also governed by this highest end. 

Now, there can be no proof offered for the position that 
Happiness is the proper end of all human pursuit, the cri- 
terion of all right conduct. It is an ultimate or final assump- 
tion, to be tested by reference to the individual judgment of 
mankind. If the assumption, that misery, and not happiness, 
is the proper end of life, found supporters, no one could reply, 
for want of a basis of argument — an assumption still more 
fundamental agreed upon by both sides. It would probably 
be the case, that the supporters of misery, as an end, would be 
at some point inconsistent with themselves; which would lay 
them open to refutation. But to any one consistently main- 
taining the position, there is no possible reply, because there 
is no medium of proof. 

If then, it appears, on making the appeal to mankind, that 
happiness is admitted to be the highest end of all action, the 
theory of Utility is proved. 

9. The judgment of Mankind is very generally in 
favour of Happiness, as the supreme end of human con- 
duct, Morality included. 

This decision, however, is not given without qualifica- 



442 THE ETHICAL STANDAKD. 

tions and reservations ; nor is there perfect unanimity 
regarding it. 

The theory of Motives to the Will is the answer to the 
question as to the ends of human action. According to the 
primary law of the Will, each one of us, for ourselves, seeks 
pleasure and avoids pain, present or prospective. The prin- 
ciple is interfered with by the operation of Fixed Ideas, under 
the influence of the feelings ; whence we have the class of 
Impassioned, Exaggerated, Irrational Motives or Ends. Of 
these influences, one deserves to be signalized as a source of 
virtuous conduct, and as approved of by mankind generally ; 
that is, Sympathy with others. 

Under the Fixed Idea, may be ranked the acquired sense 
of Dignity, which induces us often to forfeit pleasure and 
incur pain. We should not choose the life of Plato's beatified 
oyster, or (to use Aristotle's example) be content with perpetual 
childhood, with however great a share of childish happiness. 

10. The Ethical end that men are tending to, and may 
ultimately adopt without reservation, is human Welfare, 
Happiness, or Being and Well-being combined, that is, 
Utility. 

The evidence consists of such facts as these : — 

(1) By far the greater part of the morality of every age 
and country has reference to the welfare of society. Even 
in the most superstitious, sentimental, and capricious despot- 
isms, a very large share of the enactments, political and moral, 
consist in protecting one man from another, and in securing 
justice between man and man. These objects may be badly 
carried out, they may be accompanied with much oppression 
of the governed by the governing body, but they are always 
aimed at, and occasionally secured. Of the Ten Command- 
ments, four pertain to Religious Worship ; six are Utilitarian, 
that is, have no end except to ward off evils, and to further 
the good of mankind. 

(2) The general welfare is at all times considered a 
strong and adequate justification of moral rules, and is con- 
stantly adduced as a motive for obedience. The common- 
places in support of law and morality represent, that if mur- 
der and theft were to go unpunished, neither life nor property 
would be safe ; men would be in eternal warfare ; industry 
would perish ; society must soon come to an end. 

There is a strong disposition to support the more purely 



HAPPINESS THE ADMITTED ETHICAL END. 443 

sentimental requirements, and even the excesses of mere 
tyranny, by utilitarian reasons. 

The cumbersome ablutions of oriental nations are defended 
on the ground of cleanliness. The divine sanctity of kings is 
held to be an aid fco social obedience. Slavery is alleged 
to have been at one time necessary to break in mankind to 
industry. Indissoluble marriage arose from a sentiment 
rather than from utility ; but the arguments, commonly urged 
in its favour, are utilitarian. 

(3) In new cases, and in cases where no sentiment or 
passion is called into play, Utility alone is appealed to. In 
any fresh enactment, at the present day, the good of the com- 
munity is the only justification that would be listened to. If 
it were proposed to forbid absolutely the eating of pork in 
Christian countries, some great public evils would have to be 
assigned as the motive. Were the fatalities attending the 
eating of pork, on account of trichinice, to become numerous, 
and unpreventible, there would then be a reason, such as a 
modern civilized community would consider sufficient, for 
making the rearing of swine a crime and an immorality. Bat 
no mere sentimental or capricious dislike to the pig, on the 
part of any number of persons, could now procure an enact- 
ment for disusing that animal. 

(4) There is a gradual tendency to withdraw from the 
moral code, observances originating purely in sentiment, and 
having little or no connexion with human welfare. 

We have abandoned the divine sacredness of kings. We 
no longer consider ourselves morally bound to denounce and 
extirpate heretics and witches, still less to observe fasts and 
sacred days. Even in regard to the Christian Sabbath, the 
opinion is growing in favour of withdrawing both the legal 
and popular sanction formerly so stringent ; while the argu- 
ments for Sabbath observance are more and more charged 
with considerations of secular utility. 

Should these considerations be held as adequate to support 
the proposition advanced, they are decisive in favour of Utility 
as the Moral Standard that ought to be. Any other standard 
that may be set up in competition with Utility, must ultimately 
ground itself on the very same appeal to the opinions and the 
practice of mankind. 

11. The chief objections urged against Utility as the 
moral Standard have been in great part anticipated. Still, 
it is proper to advert to them in detail. 



444 THE ETHICAL STANDARD. 

I. — It is maintained that Happiness is not, either in 
fact or in right, the sole aim of human pursuit ; that men 
actually, deliberately, and by conscientious preference, seek 
other ends. For example, it is affirmed that Virtue is an 
end in itself, without regard to happiness. 

On this argument it may be observed : — 

(1) It has been abundantly shown in this work, that one 
part of the foregoing affirmation is strictly true.. Men are not 
urged to action exclusively by their pleasures and their pains. 
They are urged by other motives, of the impassioned kind ; 
among which, is to be signalized sympathy with the pains and 
pleasures of others. If this had been the only instance of action 
at variance with the regular course of the will, we should be 
able to maintain that the motive to act is still happiness, but 
not always the agent's own happiness. We have seen, however, 
that individuals, not unfrequently, act in opposition both to 
their own, and to other people's happiness ; as when mastered 
by a panic,* and when worked up into a frenzy of anger or 
antipathy. 

The sound and tenable position seems to be this : — Human 
beings, in their best and soberest moods, looking before and 
after, weighing all the consequences of actions, are generally 
disposed to regard Happiness, to some beings or others, as 
the proper end of all endeavours. The mother is not exclu- 
sively bent on her own happiness ' r she is upon her child's. 
Howard abandoned the common pleasures of life for himself, 
to diminish the misery of fellow creatures. 

(2) It is true that human beings are apt to regard Virtue 
as an end-in-itself, and not merely as a.- means to happiness as 
the final end. But the fact is fully accounted for on the 
general law of Association by Contiguity ; there being many 
other examples of the same kind, as the love of money. 
Justice, Veracity, and other virtues, are requisite, to some 
extent, for the existence of society, and, to a still greater 
extent, for prosperous existence. Under such circumstances, 
it would certainly happen that the means would participate in 
the importance of the end,, and would even be regarded as an 
end in itself. 

(3) The great leading duties may be shown to derive their 
estimation from their bearing upon human welfare. Take 
first, Veracity or Truth. Of all the moral duties, this has 
most the appearance of being an absolute and independent 
requirement. Yet mankind have always approved of de- 



VIRTUE NOT AN END IN ITSELF. 445 

ception practised upon an enemy in war, a madman, or a 
highway robber. Also, secrecy or concealment, even although 
misinterpreted, is allowed, when it does not cause pernicious 
results ; and is even enjoined and required in the intercourse 
of society, in order to prevent serious evils. But an absolute 
standard of truth is incompatible, even with secrecy or dis- 
guise ; in departing from the course of perfect openness, or 
absolute publicity of thought and action, in every possible 
circumstance, we renounce ideal truth in favour of a com- 
promised or qualified veracity — a pursuit of truth in subordi- 
nation to the general well-being of society. 

Still less is there any form of Justice that does not have 
respect to Utility. If Justice is defined as giving to every one 
their own, the motive clearly is to prevent misery to individuals. 
If there were a species of injustice that made no one unhap- 
pier, we may be quite sure that tribunals would not be set up 
for enforcing and punishing it. The idea of equality in Jus- 
tice is seemingly an absolute conception, but, in point of fact, 
equality is a matter of institution. The children of the same 
parent are, in certain circumstances, regarded as unequal by 
the law :; and justice consists in respecting this inequality. 

The virtue of Self-denial, is one that receives the commen- 
dation of society^ and stands high in the morality of reward. 
Still, it is a means to an end. The operation of the associat- 
ing principle tends to raise it above this point to tho rank of a 
final end. And there is an ascetic scheme of life that proceeds 
upon this supposition ; but the generality of mankind, in 
practice, if not always in theory, disavow it. 

(4) It is often affirmed by those that regard virtue, and 
not happiness, as the end, that the two coincide in the long run. 
Kow, not to dwell upon the very serious doubts as to the matter 
of fact, a universal coincidence without causal connexion is 
so rare as to be in the last degree improbable. A fiction of 
this sort was contrived by Leibnitz, under the title of 4 pre- 
established harmony ; ? but, among the facts of the universe, 
there are only one or two cases known to investigation. 

12. II. — It is objected to Utility as the Standard, that 
the bearings of conduct on general happiness are too 
numerous to be calculated ; and that even where the cal- 
culation is possible, people have seldom time to make it. 

(1) It is answered, that the primary moral duties refer to 
conduct where the consequences are evident and sure. The 
disregard of Justice and Truth would to an absolute certainty 



446 THE ETHICAL STANDARD. 

bring about a state of confusion and ruin ; their observance, 
in any high degree, contributes to raise the standard of 
well-being. 

In other cases, the calculation is not easy, from the num- 
ber of opposing considerations. For example, there are two 
sides to the question, Is dissent morally wrong ? in other 
words, Ought all opinions to be tolerated ? But if we venture 
to decide such a question, without the balancing or calculating 
process, we must follow blindfold the dictates of one or other 
of the two opposing sentiments, — Love of Power and Love 
of Liberty. 

It is not necessary that we should go through the process 
of calculation evevy time we have occasion to perform a moral 
act. The calculations have already been performed for all the 
leading duties, and we have only to apply the maxims to the 
cases as they arise. 

13. III. — The principle of Utility, it is said, contains 
no motives to seek the Happiness of others ; it is essen- 
tially a form of Self-Love. 

The averment is that Utility is a sufficient motive to pur- 
sue our own happiness, and the happiness of others as a means 
to our own ; but it does not afford any purely disinterested 
impulses ; it is a Selfish theory after all. 

Now, as Utility is, by profession, a benevolent and not a 
selfish theory, either such profession is insincere, or there must 
be an obstruction in carrying it out. That the supporters of 
the theory are insincere, no one has a right to affirm. The 
only question then is, what are the difficulties opposed by this 
theory, and not present in other theories (the Moral Sense, for 
example) to benevolent impulses on the part of individuals ? 

Let us view the objection first as regards the Morality of 
Obligation, or the duties that bind society together. Of these 
duties, only a small number aim at positive beneficence ; they 
are either Protective of one man against another, or they 
enforce Reciprocity, which is another name for Justice. The 
chief exception is the requiring of a minimum of charity 
towards the needy. 

This department of duty is maintained by the force of a 
certain mixture of prudential and of beneficent considerations, 
on the part of the majority, and by prudence (as fear of punish- 
ment) on the part of the minority. But there does not appear 
to be anything in our professedly Benevolent Theory of Morals 
to interfere with the small portion of disinterested impulse that 



OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY. 447 

is bound up with prudential regards, in the total of motives con- 
cerned in the morality of social order called the primary or 
obligatory morality. 

Let us, in the next place, view the objection as regards 
Optional Morality, where positive beneficence has full play. 
The principal motive in this department is Reward, in the 
shape either of benefits or of approbation. Now, there is 
nothing to hinder the supporters of the standard of Utility 
from joining in the rewards or commendations bestowed on 
works of charity and beneficence. 

Again, there is, in the constitution of the mind, a motive 
superior to reward, namely, Sympathy proper, or the purely 
Disinterested impulse to alleviate the pains and advance the 
pleasures of others. This part of the mind is wholly unselfish ; 
it needs no other prompting than the fact that some one is in 
pain, or may be made happier by something within the power 
of the agent. 

The objectors need to be reminded that Obligatory 
Morality, which works by punishment, creates a purely selfish 
motive ; that Optional Morality, in so far as stimulated by 
Reward, is also selfish ; and that the only source of purely 
disinterested impulses is in the unprompted Sympathy of the 
individual mind. If such sympathies exist, and if nothing is 
done to uproot or paralyze them, they will urge men to do 
good to others, irrespective of all theories. Good done from 
any other source or motive is necessarily self-seeking. It is a 
common remark, with reference to the sanctions of a future 
life, that they create purely self-regarding motives. Any pro- 
posal to increase disinterested action by moral obligation con- 
tains a self-contradiction; it is suicidal. The rich may be 
made to give half their wealth to the poor ; but in as far as 
they are made to do it, they are not benevolent. Law distrusts 
generosity and supersedes it. If a man is expected to regard 
the happiness of others as an end in itself, and not as means 
to his own happiness, he must be left to his own impulses : 
'the quality of mercy is not strained? The advocates of 
Utility may observe non-interference as well as others. 



448 THE MORAL FACULTY. 



CHAPTEE III 
THE MOEAL FACULTY. 

1. The chief question in the Psychology of Ethics is 
whether the Moral Faculty, or Conscience, be a simple or a 
complex fact of the mind. 

Practically, it would seem of little importance in what 
way the moral faculty originated, except with a view to teach 
us how it may be best strengthened when it happens to be 
weak. Still, a very great importance has been attached to the 
view, that it is simple and innate; the supposition being 
that a higher authority thereby belongs to it. If it arises 
from mere education, it depends on the teacher for the time 
being ; if it exists prior to all education, it seems to be the 
voice of universal nature or of God. 

2. In favour of the simple and intuitive character of 
Moral Sentiment, it is argued : — 

First, That our judgments of right and wrong are im- 
mediate and instantaneous. 

On almost all occasions, we are ready at once to pronounce 
an action right or wrong. We do not need to deliberate or 
enquire, or to canvass reasons and considerations for and 
against, in order to declare a murder, a theft, or a lie to be 
wrong. We are fully armed with the power of deciding all 
such questions ; we do not hesitate, like a person that has to 
consult a variety of different faculties or interests. Just as 
we pronounce at once whether the day is light or dark, hot or 
cold ; whether a weight is light or heavy ; — we are able to 
say whether an action is morally right or the opposite. 

3. Secondly, It is a faculty or power belonging to all 
mankind. 

This was expressed by Cicero, in a famous passage, often 
quoted with approbation, by the supporters of innate moral 
distinctions. ' There is one true and original law conformable 
to reason and to nature, diffused over all, invariable, eternal, 
which calls to duty and deters from injustice, &c.' 



IS THE MORAL FACULTY AN INTUITION ? 449 

4. Thirdly, Moral Sentiment is said to be radically 
different in its nature from any other fact or phenomenon 
of the mind. 

The peculiar state of discriminating right and wrong, 
involving approbation and disapprobation, is considered to be 
entirely unlike any other mental element ; and, if so, we are 
precluded from resolving or analyzing it into simpler modes 
of feeling, willing, or thinking. 

We have many feelings that urge us to act and abstain 
from acting ; but the prompting of conscience has something 
peculiar to itself, which has been expressed by the terms Tight- 
ness, authority, supremacy. Other motives, — hunger, curi- 
osity, benevolence, and so on, — have might, this has right. 

So, the Intellect has many occasions for putting forth its 
aptitudes of discriminating, identifying, remembering ; but 
the operation of discerning right and wrong is supposed to be 
a unique employment of those functions. 

5. In reply to these arguments, and in support of the 
view that the Moral Faculty is complex and derived, the 
following considerations are urged : — 

First, The Immediateness of a judgment, is no proof 
of its being innate; long practice or familiarity has the 
same effect. 

In proportion as we are habituated to any subject, or any 
class of operations, our decisions are rapid and independent 
of deliberation. An expert geometer sees at a glance whether 
a demonstration is correct. In extempore speech, a person 
has to perform every moment a series of judgments as to the 
suitability of words to meaning, to grammar, to taste, to effect 
upon an audience. An old soldier knows in an instant, with- 
out thought or deliberation, whether a position is sufficiently 
guarded. There is no greater rapidity in the judgments of right 
and wrong, than in these acquired professional judgments. 

Moreover, the decisions of conscience are quick only in the 
simpler cases. It happens not unfrequently that difficult and 
protracted deliberations are necessary to a moral judgment. 

6. Secondly, The alleged similarity of men's moral 
judgments in all countries and times holds only to a 
limited degree. 

The very great differences among different nations, as to 
what constitutes right and wrong, are too numerous, striking, 

ZliJ 



450 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

and serious, not to have been often brought forward in Ethical 
controversy. Bobbery and murder are legalized in whole 
nations. Macaulay's picture of the Highland Chief of former 
days is not singular in the experience of mankind. 

1 His own vassals, indeed, were few in number, but he came of 
the' best blood of the Highlands. He kept up a close connexion 
with his more powerful kinsmen ; nor did they like him the less 
because he was a robber; for he never robbed them; and that 
robbery, merely as robbery, was a wicked and disgraceful act, had 
never entered into the mind of any Celtic chief.' 

Various answers have been given by the advocates of 
innate morality to these serious discrepancies. 

(1) It is maintained that savage or uncultivated nations 
are not a fair criterion of mankind generally : that as men 
become more civilized, they approximate to unity of moral 
sentiment ; and what civilized men agree in, is alone to be 
taken as the judgment of the race. 

Now, this argument would have great weight, in any dis- 
cussion as to what is good, useful, expedient, or what is in 
accordance with the cultivated reason or intelligence of man- 
kind ; because civilization consists in the exercise of men's 
intellectual faculties to improve their condition. But in a 
controversy as to what is given us by nature, — what we 
possess independently of intelligent search and experience, — 
the appeal to civilization does not apply. What civilized 
men agree upon among themselves, as opposed to savages, 
is likely to be the reverse of a natural instinct ; in other 
words, something suggested by reason and experience. 

In the next place, counting only civilized races, that is, 
including the chief European, American, and Asiatic peoples 
of the present day, and the Greeks and Romans of the ancient 
world, we still find disparities on what are deemed by us 
fundamental points of moral right and wrong. Polygamy is 
regarded as right in Turkey, India, and China, and as wrong 
in England. Marriages that we pronounce incestuous were 
legitimate in ancient times. The views entertained by Plato 
and Aristotle as to the intercourse of the sexes are now 
looked upon with abhorrence. 

(2) It has been replied that, although men differ greatly 
in what they consider right and wrong, they all agree in 
possessing some notion of right and wrong. No people are 
entirely devoid of moral judgments. 

But this is to surrender the only position of any real im- 
portance. The simple and underived character of the moral 



MORALITY IS A CODE. 451 

faculty is maintained because of the superior authority at- 
tached to what is natural, as opposed to what is merely con- 
ventional. But if nothing be natural but the mere fact of 
right and wrong, while all the details, which alone have any 
value, are settled by convention and custom, we are as much 
at sea on one system as on the other. 

(3) It is fully admitted, being, indeed, impossible to deny, 
that education must concur with natural impulses in making 
up the moral sentiment. No human being, abandoned en- 
tirely to native promptings, is ever found to manifest a sense 
of right and wrong. As a general rule, the strength of the 
conscience depends on the care bestowed on its cultivation. 
Although we have had to recognize primitive distinctions 
among men as to the readiness to take on moral training, still, 
the better the training, the stronger will be the conscientious 
determinations. 

But this admission has the effect of reducing the part 
performed by nature to a small and uncertain amount. Even 
if there were native preferences, they might be completely 
overborne and reversed by an assiduous education. The 
difference made by inculcation is so great, that it practically 
amounts to everything. A voice so feeble as to be overpowered 
by foreign elements would do no credit to nature. 

7. Thirdly, Moral right and wrong is not so much a 
simple, indivisible property, as an extensive Code of regu- 
lations, which cannot even be understood without a cer- 
tain maturity of the intelligence. 

It is not possible to sum up the whole field of moral right 
and wrong, so as to bring it within the scope of a single limited 
perception, like the perception of resistance, or of colour. In 
regard to some of the alleged intuitions at the foundation of 
our knowledge, as for example time and space, there is a 
comparative simplicity and unity, rendering their innate 
origin less disputable. No such simplicity can be assigned 
in the region of duty. 

After the subject of morals has been studied in the detail, 
it has, indeed, been found practicable to comprise the whole, 
by a kind of generalization, in one comprehensive recognition 
of regard to our fellows. But, in the first place, this is far from 
a primitive or an intuitive suggestion of the mind. It came 
at a late stage of human history, and is even regarded as a part 
of Revelation. In the second place, this high generality must 
be accompanied with detailed applications to particular cases 



452 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

and circumstances. Life is full of conflicting demands, and 
there must be special rules to adjust these various demands. 
We have to be told that country is greater than family ; that 
temporary interests are to succumb to more enduring, and so on. 

Supposing the Love of our Neighbour to unfold in detail, 
as it expresses in sum, the whole of morality, this is only 
another name for our Sympathetic, Benevolent, or Disin- 
terested regards, into which therefore Conscience would be 
resolved, as it was by Hume. 

But Morals is properly considered as a wide-ranging 
science, having a variety of heads full of difficulty, and de- 
manding minute consideration. The subject of Justice, has 
nothing simple but the abstract statement — giving each one 
their due ; before that can be applied, we must ascertain what 
is each person's due, which introduces complex questions of 
relative merit, far transcending the sphere of intuition. 

If any part of Morals had the simplicity of an instinct, it 
would be regard to Truth. The difference between truth and 
falsehood might almost be regarded as a primitive suscepti- 
bility, like the difference between light and dark, between resist- 
ance and non-resistance. That each person should say what is, 
instead of what is not, may well seem a primitive and natural 
impulse. In circumstances of perfect indifference, this would 
be the obvious and usual course of conduct ; being, like the 
straight line, the shortest distance between two points. Let 
a motive arise, however, in favour of the lie, and there is 
nothing to insure the truth. Reference must be made to 
other parts of the mind, from which counter-motives may 
be furnished ; and the intuition in favour of Truth, not beiug 
able to support itself, has to repose on the general foundation 
of all virtue, the instituted recognition of the claims of others. 

8. Fourthly, Intuition is incapable of settling the de- 
bated questions of Practical Morality. 

If we recall some of the great questions of practical life 
that have divided the opinions of mankind, we shall find that 
mere Intuition is helpless to decide them. 

The toleration of heretical opinions has been a greatly con- 
tested point. Our feelings are arrayed on both sides ; and 
there is no prompting of nature to arbitrate between the 
opposing impulses. If the advance of civilization has tended 
to liberty, it has been owing partly to greater enlightenment, 
and partly to the successful struggles of dissent in the war 
with established opinion. 



ANALYSIS OF THE MORAL FACULTY. 453 

The questions relating to marriage are wholly undecideable 
by intuition. The natural impulses are for unlimited co-habi- 
tation. The degree of restraint to be put upon this tendency 
is not indicated by any sentiment that can be discovered in 
the mind. The case is very peculiar. In theft and murder, 
the immediate consequences are injury to some one ; in sexual 
indulgence, the immediate result is agreeable to all concerned. 
The evils are traceable only in remote consequences, which in- 
tuition can know nothing of. It is not to be wondered, there- 
fore, that nations, even highly civilized, have differed widely 
in their marriage institutions ; agreeing only in the propriety 
of adopting and enforcing some regulations. So essentially 
has this matter been bound up with the moral code of every 
society, that a proposed criterion of morality unable to grapple 
with it, would be discarded as worthless. Yet there is no in- 
tuitive sentiment that can be of any avail in the question of 
marriage with a deceased wife's sister. 

9. Fifthly, It is practicable to analyze or resolve the 
Moral Faculty ; and, in so doing, to explain, both its pecu- 
liar property, and the similarity of moral judgments so far 
as existing among men. 

We begin by estimating the operation of (1) Prudence, 
(2) Sympathy, and (3) the Emotions generally. 

The inducements to perform a moral act, as, for example, 
the fulfilling of a bargain, — are plainly seen to be of various 
kinds. 

(1) Prudence, or Self-interest, has obviously much to do 
with the moral conduct. Postponing for the present the con- 
sideration of Punishment, which is one mode of appeal to the 
prudential regards, we can trace the workings of self-interest 
on many occasions wherein men act right. To fulfil a bargain 
is, in the great majority of cases, for the advantage of the 
agent ; if he fails to perform his part, others may do the 
same to him. 

Our self-interest may look still farther. We may readily 
discover that if we set an example of injustice, it may be 
taken up and repeated to such a degree that we can count 
upon nothing ; social security comes to an end, and individual 
existence, even if possible, would cease to be desirable. 

A yet higher view of self-interest informs us, that by per- 
forming all our obligations to our fellows, we not only attain 
reciprocal performance, but generate mutual affections and 
sympathies, which greatly augment the happiness of life. 



454 THE MORAL FACULTY. 

(2) Sympathy, or Fellow-feeling, the source of our dis- 
interested actions, must next be taken into the account. It 
is a consequence of our sympathetic endowment that we revolt 
from inflicting pain on another, and even forego a certain 
satisfaction to self rather than be the occasion of suffering to 
a fellow creature. Moved thus, we perform many obligations 
on the ground of the misery (not our own) accruing from 
their neglect. 

A considerable portion of human virtue springs directly 
from this source. If purely disinterested tendencies were 
withdrawn from the breast, the whole existence of humanity 
would be changed. Society might not be impossible ; there 
are races where mutual sympathy barely exists : but the ful- 
filment of obligations, if always dependent on a sense of 
self-interest, would fail where that was not apparent. On the 
other hand, if we were on all occasions touched with the un- 
happiness to others immediately and remotely springing from 
our conduct — if sympathy were perfect and unfailing — we 
could hardly ever omit doing what was right. 

(3) Our several Emotions or Passions may co-operate 
with Prudence and with Sympathy in a way to make both 
the one and the other more efficacious. 

Prudence, in the shape of aversion to pain, is rendered 
more acute when the pain is accompanied with Fear. The 
perturbation of fear rises up as a deterring motive when 
dangers loom in the distance. One powerful check to the 
commission of injury is the retaliation of the sufferer, which 
is a danger of the vague and illimitable kind, calculated to 
create alarm. 

Anger, or Resentment, also enters, in various ways, into 
our moral impulses. In one shape it has just been noticed. 
In concurrence with Self-interest and Sympathy, it heightens 
the feeling of reprobation against wrong-doers. 

The Tender Emotion, and the Affections, uphold us in the 
performance of our duties to others, being an additional safe- 
guard against injury to the objects of the feelings. It has 
already been shown how these emotions, while tending to 
coalesce with Sympathy proper, are yet distinguished from it. 

The ^Esthetic Emotions have important bearings upon 
Ethical Sentiment. As a whole, they are favourable to 
human virtue, being n on -exclusive pleasures. They, how- 
ever, give a bias to the formation of moral rules, and pervert 
the proper test of right and wrong in a manner to be after- 
wards explained. 



RIGHTNESS IMPLIES GOVERNMENT OK AUTHORITY. 455 

10. Although Prudence and Sympathy, and the various 
Emotions named, are powerful inducements to what is 
light in action, and although, without these, right would 
not prevail among mankind, yet they do not stamp the 
peculiar attribute of Eightness. For this, we must refer 
to the institution of Government, or Authority. 

Although the force of these various motives on the side of 
right is all-powerful and essential, so much so, that without 
them morality would be impossible, they do not, of them- 
selves, impart the character of a moral act. We do not 
always feel that, because we have neglected our interest or 
violated our sympathies, we have on that account done wrong. 
The criterion of lightness in particular cases is something 
different. 

The reasons are apparent. For although prudence, as 
regards self, and sympathy or fellow-feeling, as regards 
others, would comprehend all the interests of mankind — 
everything that morality can desire to accomplish — neverthe- 
less, the acting out of these impulses by each individual at 
random would not suffice for the exigencies of human life. 
They must be regulated, directed, reconciled by society at 
large; each person must be made to work upon the same 
plan as every other person. This leads to the institution of 
Government and Authority, with the correlatives of Law, 
Obligation, and Punishment. Our natural impulses for 
good are now directed into an artificial channel, and it is no 
longer optional whether they shall fall into that channel. 
The nature of the case requires all to conform alike to the 
general arrangements, and whoever is not sufficiently urged 
by the natural motives, is brought under the spur of a new 
kind of prudential motive — Punishment. 

Government, Authority, Law, Obligation, Punishment, are 
all implicated in the same great Institution of Society, to which 
Morality owes its chief foundation, and the Moral Sentiment 
its special attribute. Morality is not Prudence, nor Benevo- 
lence, in their primitive or spontaneous manifestations ; it is 
the systematic codification of prudential and benevolent 
actions, rendered obligatory by what is termed penalties or 
Punishment ; an entirely distinct motive, artificially framed 
by human society, but made so familiar to every member of 
society as to be a second nature. None are allowed to be pru- 
dential or sympathizing in their own way. Parents are com- 
pelled to nourish their own children ; servants to obey their 



456 THE MOEAL FACULTY. 

own masters, to the neglect of other regards ; all citizens have 
to abide by the awards of authority ; bargains are to be ful- 
filled according to a prescribed form and letter ; truth is to be 
spoken on certain definite occasions, and not on others. In a 
formed society, the very best impulses of nature fail to guide 
the citizen's actions. No doubt there ought to be a general 
coincidence between what Prudence and Sympathy would 
dictate, and what Law dictates ; but the precise adjustment is 
a matter of institution. A moral act is not merely an act tend- 
ing to reconcile the good of the agent with the good of the 
whole society ; it is an act, prescribed by the social authority, 
and rendered obligatory upon every citizen. Its morality is 
constituted by its authoritative prescription, and not by its 
fulfilling the primary ends of the social institution. A bad 
law is still a law ; an ill-judged moral precept is still a moral 
precept, felt as such by every loyal citizen. 

11. It may be proved, by such evidence as the case 
admits of, that the peculiarity of the Moral Sentiment, or 
Conscience, is identified with our education under govern- 
ment, or Authority. 

Conscience is described by such terms as moral approba- 
tion and disapprobation ; and involves, when highly developed, 
a peculiar and unmistakeable revulsion of mind at what is 
wrong, and a strong resentment towards the wrong-doer, 
which become Remorse, in the case of self. 

It is capable of being proved, that there is nothing natural 
or primitive in these feelings, except in so far as the case hap- 
pens to concur with the dictates of Self-interest, or Sympathy, 
aided by the Emotions formerly specified. Any action that is 
hostile to our interest, excites a form of disapprobation, such 
as belongs to wounded self-interest ; and any action that puts 
another to pain may so affect our natural sympathy as to be 
disapproved, and resented on that ground. These natural or 
inborn feelings are always liable to coincide with moral right 
and wrong, although they are not its criterion or measure in the 
mind of each individual. But in those cases where an unusually 
strong feeling of moral disapprobation is awakened, there is 
apt to be a concurrence of the primitive motives of self, and of 
fellow-feeling; and it is the ideal of good law, and good morality, 
to coincide with a certain well-proportioned adjustment of the 
Prudential and the Sympathetic regards of the individual. 

The requisite allowance being made for the natural im- 
pulses, we must now adduce the facts, showing that the cha- 



CONSCIENCE AN EDUCATION UNDER AUTHORITY. 457 

racteristic of the Moral Sense is an education under Law, or 
Authority, through the instrumentality of Punishment. 

(1) It is a fact that human beings living in society are 
placed under discipline, accompanied by punishment. Cer- 
tain actions are forbidden, and the doers of them are sub- 
jected to some painful infliction; which is increased in severity 
if they are persisted in. Now, what would be the natural 
consequence of such a system, under the known laws of 
feeling, will, and intellect ? "Would not an action that always 
brings down punishment be associated with the pain and the 
dread of punishment? Such an association is inevitably 
formed, and becomes at least a part, and a very important 
part, of the sense of duty ; nay, it would of itself, after a 
certain amount of repetition, be adequate to restrain for 
ever the performance of the action, thus attaining the end of 
morality. 

There may be various ways of evoking and forming the 
moral sentiment, but the one way most commonly trusted to, and 
never altogether dispensed with, is the associating of pain, that 
is, punishment, with the actions that are disallowed. Punish- 
ment is held out as the consequence of performing certain 
actions ; every individual is made to taste of it ; its infliction 
is one of the most familiar occurrences of every-day life. 
Consequently, whatever else may be present in the moral 
sentiment, this fact of the connexion of pain with forbidden 
actions must enter into it with an overpowering prominence. 
Any natural or primitive impulse in the direction of duty 
must be very marked and apparent, in order to divide with 
this communicated bias the direction of our conduct. It is 
for the supporters of innate distinctions to point out any 
concurring impetus (apaxt from the Prudential and Sympa- 
thetic regards) sufficiently important to cast these powerful 
associations into a secondary or subordinate position. 

By a familiar effect of Contiguous Association, the dread 
of punishment clothes the forbidden act with a feeling of 
aversion, which in the end persists of its own accord, and 
without reference to the punishment. Actions that have long 
been connected in the mind with pains and penalties, come to 
be contemplated with a disinterested repugnance ; they seem to 
give pain on their own account. This is a parallel, from the 
side of pain, of the acquired attachment to money. Now, 
when, by such transference, a self-subsisting sentiment of 
aversion has been created, the conscience seems to be detached 
from all external sanctions, and to possess an isolated footing 



458 THE MORAL FACULTY* 

in the mind. It has passed through the stage of reference to 
authority, and has become a law to itself. But no conscience 
ever arrives at the independent standing, without first existing 
in the reflected and dependent stage. 

We must never omit from the composition of the Con- 
science the primary impulses of Self- Interest and Sympathy, 
which in minds strongly alive to one or other, always count 
for a powerful element in human conduct, although for reasons 
already stated, not the strictly moral element, so far as the 
individual is concerned. They are adopted, more or less r by 
the authority imposing the moral code ; and when the two 
sources coincide, the stream is all the stronger. 

(2) Where moral training is omitted or greatly neglected^ 
there is an absence of security for virtuous conduct.. 

In no civilized community is moral discipline entirely 
wanting. Although children may be neglected by their 
parents, they come at last under the discipline of the law and 
the public. They cannot be exempted from the associations 
of punishment with wrong. But when these associations have 
not been early and sedulously formed, in the family, in the 
school, and in the workshop, the moral sentiment is left in a 
feeble condition. There still remain the force of the law and 
of public opinion, the examples of public punishment^ and the 
reprobation of guilt. Every member of the community must 
witness daily the degraded condition of the viciously disposed, 
and the prosperity following on respect for the law. No 
human being escapes from thus contracting moral impressions 
to a very large amount. 

(3) Whenever an action is associated with Disapprobation 
and Punishment, there grows up, in reference to it, a state of 
mind undistinguishable from Moral Sentiment. 

There are many instances where individuals are enjoined 
to a course of conduct wholly indifferent with regard to 
universal morality, as in the regulations of societies formed for 
special purposes. Each member of the society has to conform 
to these regulations, under pain of forfeiting all the benefits of 
the society, and of perhaps incurring positive evils. The code 
of honour among gentlemen is an example of these artificial 
impositions. It is not to be supposed that there should be an 
innate sentiment to perform actions having nothing to do with 
moral right and wrong ; yet the disapprobation and the remorse 
following on a breach of the code of honour, will often be 
greater than what follows a breach of the moral law. The 
constant habit of regarding with dread the consequences of 



DISAPPROBATION CREATES A MORAL SENTIMENT. 459 

violating any of the rules, simulates a moral sentiment, on a 
subject unconnected with morality properly so called. 

The arbitrary ceremonial customs of nations, with refer- 
ence to such points as ablutions, clothing, eating and abstin- 
ence from meats, — when rendered obligatory by the force of 
penalties, occupy exactly the same place in the mind as the 
principles of moral right and wrong. The same form of dread 
attaches to the consequences of neglect ; the same remorse is 
felt by the individual offender. The exposure of the naked 
person is as much abhorred as telling a lie. The Turkish 
woman exposing her face, is no less conscience-smitten than 
if she murdered her child. There is no act, however trivial, 
that cannot be raised to the position of a moral act, by the 
imperative of society. 

Still more striking is the growth of a moral sentiment in 
connexion with such usages as the Hindoo suttee. It is known 
that the Hindoo widow, if prevented from burning herself with 
her husband's corpse, often feels all the pangs of remorse, and 
leads a life of misery and self-humiliation. The habitual in- 
culcation of this duty by society, the penalty of disgrace 
attached to its omission, operate to implant a sentiment in 
every respect analogous to the strongest moral sentiment. 



I 

It odd 
an Yl vgsb <h lidd oaiviQ 

n asmnM sdT 
o doBS sfnaswo* 

PAET II. 

THE ETHICAL SYSTEMS. 



The first important name in Ancient Ethical Philosophy is 

SOKRATES. [469-399 B.C.] 

For the views of Sokrates, as well as his method,* we have 
first the Memorabilia of Xenophon, and next snch of the 
Platonic Compositions, as are judged, by comparison with the 
Memorabilia, to keep closest to the real Sokrates. Of these, 
the chief are the Apology of Sokrates, the Kriton and the 
Ph^edon. 

The ' Memorabilia ' was composed by Xenophon, expressly 
to vindicate Sokrates against the accusations and unfavourable 
opinions that led to his execution. The l Apology ' is Plato's 
account of his method, and also sets forth his moral attitude. 
The ' Kriton ' describes a conversation between him and his 
friend Kriton, in prison, two days before his death, wherein, 
in reply to the entreaties of his friends generally that he 
should make his escape from prison, he declares his determi- 
nation to abide by the laws of the Athenian State. Inasmuch 
as, in the Apology, he had seemed to set his private convictions 
above the public authority, he here presents another side of 
his character. The ' Phsedon ' contains the conversation on 
4 the Immortality of the Soul ; just before his execution. 

The Ethical bearings of the Philosophical method, the 
Doctrines, and the Life of Sokrates. are these : — 

The direction he gave to philosophical enquiry, was ex- 
pressed in the saying that he brought ' Philosophy down from 
Heaven to Earth.' His subjects were Man and Society. He 
entered a protest against the enquiries of the early philosophers 

* See, on the method of Sokrates, Appendix A. 



DOCTRINE THAT VIRTUE IS KNOWLEDGE. 461 

as to the constitution of the Kosmos, the nature of the Heavenly 
Bodies, the theory of Winds and Storms. He called these 
Divine things ; and in a great degree useless, if understood. 
The Human relations of life, the varieties of conduct of men 
towards each other in all capacities, were alone within the com- 
pass of knowledge, and capable of yielding fruit. In short, his 
turn of mind was thoroughly practical, we might say utilitarian. 

I. — He gave a foundation and a shape to Ethical Science, 
by insisting on its practical character, and by showing that, 
like the other arts of life, it had an End, and a Theory from 
which flows the precepts or means. The End, which would 
be the Standard, was not stated by him, and hardly even by 
Plato, otherwise than in general language ; the Summum 
Bonum had not as yet become a matter of close debate. ' The 
art of dealing with human beings,' 'the art of behaving in 
society,' 'the science of human happiness/ were various 
modes of expressing the final end of conduct.* Sokrates 
clearly indicated the difference between an unscientific and a 
scientific art ; the one is an incommunicable knack or dexterity, 
the other is founded on theoretical principles. 

II. — Notwithstanding his professing ignorance of what 
virtue is, Sokrates had a definite doctrine with reference to 
Ethics, which we may call his Psychology of the subject. 
This was the doctrine that resolves Virtue into Knowledge, 
Vice into Ignorance or Folly. ' To do right was the only 
way to impart happiness, or the least degree of unhappiness 
compatible with any given situation : now, this was precisely 
what every one wished for and aimed at — only that many 
persons, from ignorance, took the wrong road ; and no man 
was wise enough always to take the right. But as no man 
was willingly his own enemy, so no man ever did wrong 
willingly ; it was because he was not fully or correctly in- 
formed of the consequences of his own actions ; so that the 
proper remedy to apply, was enlarged teaching of conse- 
quences and improved judgment. To make him willing to 
be taught, the only condition required was to make him con- 
scious of his own ignorance ; the want of which consciousness 
was the real cause both of indocility and of vice ' ( Grote) . This 

* In setting forth the Ethical End, the language of Sokrates was not 
always consistent. He sometimes stated it, as if it included an indepen- 
dent reference to the happiness of others ; at other times, he speaks as if 
the end was the agent's own happiness, to which the happiness of others 
was the greatest and most essential means. The first view, although not 
always adhered to. prevails in Xenophon ; the second appears most in 
Plato*. 



462 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— SOKRATES. 

doctrine grew out of his favourite analogy between social 
duty and a profession or trade. When the artizan goes 
wrong, it is usually from pure ignorance or incapacity ; he is 
willing to do good work if he is able. 

III. — The Summum Bonum with Sokrates was Well-doing. 
He had no ideal of pursuit for man apart from virtue, or what 
he esteemed virtue — the noble and the praiseworthy. This 
was the elevated point of view maintained alike by him and 
by Plato, and common to them with the ideal of modern ages. 

Well-doing consisted in doing well whatever a man under- 
took. l The best man/ he said, ' and the most beloved by 
the gods, is he that, as a husbandman, performs well the duties 
of husbandry ; as a surgeon, the duties of the medical art ; in 
political life, his duty towards the commonwealth. The man 
that does nothing well is neither useful nor agreeable to the 
gods.' And as knowledge is essential to all undertakings, 
knowledge is the one thing needf u.1. This exclusive regard 
to knowledge was his one-sidedness as a moral theorist ; but 
he did not consistently exclude all reference to the voluntary 
control of appetite and passion. 

IV. — He inculcated Practical Precepts of a self-denying 
kind, intended to curb the excesses of human desire and am- 
bition. He urged the pleasures of self-improvement and of 
duty against indulgences, honours, and worldly advancement. 
In the ' Apology,' he states it as the second aim of his life 
(after imparting the shock of conscious ignorance) to reproach 
men for pursuing wealth and glory more than wisdom and 
virtue. In ' Kriton,' he lays it down that we are never to 
act wrongly or unjustly, although others are unjust to us. 
And, in his own life, he furnished an illustrious example of his 
teaching. The same lofty strain was taken up by Plato, and 
repeated in most of the subsequent Ethical schools. 

V. — His Ethical Theory extended itself to Government, 
where he applied his analogy of the special arts. The legiti- 
mate King was he that knew how to govern well. 

VI. — The connexion in the mind of Sokrates between 
Ethics and Theology was very slender. 

In the first place, his distinction of Divine and Human 
things, was an exclusion of the arbitrary will of the gods 
from human affairs, or from those things that constituted the 
ethical end. 

But in the next place, he always preserved a pious and re- 
verential tone of mind; and considered that, after patient study, 
men should still consult the oracles, by which the gods, in 



ETHICAL DIALOGUES OF PLATO. 463 

cases of difficulty, graciously signified their intentions, and 
their beneficent care of the race. Then, the practice of well- 
doing was prompted by reference to the satisfaction of the 
gods. In so far as the gods administered the world in a right 
spirit, they would show favour to the virtuous. 

PLATO. [427-347 B.C.] 

The Ethical Doctrines of Plato are scattered through his 
various Dialogues ; and incorporated with his philosophical 
method, with his theory of Ideas, and with his theories of 
man and of society. 

From Sokrates, Plato derived Dialectics, or the method of 
Debate ; he embodied all his views in imaginary conversa- 
tions, or Dialogues, suggested by, and resembling the real 
conversations of Sokrates. And farther, in imitation of his 
master, he carried on his search after truth under the guise of 
ascertaining the exact meaning or definition of leading terms ; 
as Virtue, Courage, Holiness, Temperance, Justice, Law, 
Beauty, Knowledge, Rhetoric, &c. 

We shall first pass in review the chief Dialogues contain- 
ing Ethical doctrines. 

The Apology, Keitox, and Euthyphron (we follow Mr. 
Grote's order) may be passed by as belonging more to his 
master than to himself; moreover, everything contained in 
them will be found recurring in other dialogues. 

The Alkibiades I. is a good specimen of the Sokratic man- 
ner. It brings out the loose discordant notions of Just and 
Unjust prevailing in the community ; sets forth that the Just 
is also honourable, good, and expedient — the cause of happi- 
ness to the just man ; urges the importance of Self-know- 
ledge ; and maintains that the conditions of happiness are not 
wealth and power, but Justice and Temperance. 

Alkibiades II. brings out a Platonic position as to the 
Good. There are a number of things that are good, as health, 
money, family, but there is farther required the skill to apply 
these in proper measure to the supreme end of life. All 
knowledge is not valuable ; there may be cases where ignor- 
ance is better. What we are principally interested in know- 
ing is the Good, the Best, the Profitable. The man of much 
learning, without this, is like a vessel tossed on the sea with- 
out a pilot. # 

* f What Plato here calls the Knowledge of Good, or Reason, — the just 
discrimination and comparative appreciation, of Ends and Means — ap- 
pears in the Politikus and the Euthydemus, under the title of the Regal or 



464 ETHICAL SYSTEMS-—PLATO. 

In Hippias Minor, appears an extreme statement of the 
doctrine, common to Sokrates and Plato, identifying virtue 
with knowledge, or giving exclusive attention to the intel- 
lectual element of conduct. It is urged that a mendacious 
person, able to tell the truth if he chooses, is better than one 
unable to tell it, although wishing to do so ; the knowledge is 
of greater worth than the good disposition. 

In Minos (or the Definition of Law) he refuses to accept 
the decree of the state as a law, but postulates the decision of 
some Ideal wise man. This is a following out of the Sokratic 
analogy of the professions, to a purely ideal demand ; the wise 
man is never producible. In many dialogues (Kriton, Laches, 
&c.) the decision of some Expert is sought, as a physician is 
consulted in disease ; but the Moral expert is unknown to any 
actual communitry. 

In Laches, the question * what is Virtue ? ' is put ; it is 
argued under the special virtue of Courage. In a truly 
Sokratic dialogue, Sokrates is in search of a definition of 
Courage ; as happens in the search dialogues, there is no 
definite result, but the drift of the discussion is to make 
courage a mode of intelligence, and to resolve it into the 
grand desideratum of the knowledge of good and evil — 
belonging to the One Wise Man. 

Charmides discusses Temperance. As usual with Plato in 
discussing the virtues, with a view to their Logical definition, 
he presupposes that this is something beneficial and good. 
Various definitions are given of Temperance ; and all are re- 
jected ; but the dialogue falls into the same track as the 
Laches, in putting forward the supreme science of good and 
evil. It is a happy example of the Sokratic manner and pur- 
Political Art, as employing or directing the results of all other arts, 
which are considered as subordinate : in the Protagoras, under the title 
of art of calculation or mensuration : in the Philebus, as measure and 
proportion : in the Phaadrus (in regard to rhetoric) as the art of turning 
to account, for the main purpose of persuasion, all the special processes, 
stratagems, decorations, &c, imparted by professional masters. In the 
Republic, it is personified in the few venerable Elders who constitute the 
Reason of the society, and whose directions all the rest (Guardians and 
Producers) are bound implicitly to follow : the virtue of the subordinates 
consisting in this implicit obedience. In the Leges, it is defined as the 
complete subjection in the mind, of pleasures and pains to right Reason, 
without which, no special aptitudes are worth having. In the Xeno- 
phontic Memorabilia, it stands as a Sokratic authority under the title of 
Sophrosyne or Temperance : and the Profitable is declared identical with 
the Good, as the directing and limiting principle for all human pursuits 
and proceedings.' (Grote's Plato, L, 362.) 



IS VIRTUE TEACHABLE? 465 

pose, of exposing the conceit of knowledge, the fancy that 
people understand the meaning of the general terms habitually- 
employed. 

Lysis on Friendship, or Love, might be expected to fur- 
nish some ethical openings, but it is rather a piece of dialectic, 
without result, farther than to impart the consciousness of 
ignorance. If it suggests anything positive, it is the Idea of 
Good, as the ultimate end of affection. The subject is one of 
special interest in ancient Ethics, as being one of the aspects 
of Benevolent sentiment in the Pagan world. In Aristotle 
we first find a definite handling of it. 

Menon may be considered as pre-eminently ethical in its 
design. It is expressly devoted to the question — Is Virtue 
teachable? Sokrates as usual confesses that he does not 
know what virtue is. He will not accept a catalogue of the 
admitted virtues as a definition of virtue, and presses for some 
common or defining attribute. He advances on his own side 
his usual doctrine that virtue is Knowledge, or a mode of 
Knowledge, and that it is good and profitable ; which is merely 
an iteration of the Science of good and evil. He distinguishes 
virtue from Right Opinion, a sort of quasi-knowledge, the 
knowledge of esteemed and useful citizens, which cannot be 
the highest knowledge, since these citizens fail to impart it 
even to their own sons. 

In this dialogue, we have Plato's view of Immortality, 
which comprises both pre-existence and post-existence. The 
pre-existence is used to explain the derivation of general 
notions, or Ideas, which are antecedent to the perceptions of 
sense. 

In Peotagoeas, we find one of the most important of the 
ethical discussions of Plato. It proceeds from the same ques- 
tion — Is virtue teachable ? — Sokrates as usual expressing his 
doubts on the point. Protagoras then delivers a splendid 
harangue, showing how virtue is taught — namely, by the 
practice of society in approving, condemning, rewarding, 
punishing the actions of individuals. Prom childhood upward, 
every human being in society is a witness to the moral pro- 
cedure of society, and by degrees both knows, and conforms to, 
the maxims of virtne of the society. Protagoras himself as a 
professed teacher, or sophist, can improve but little upon this 
habitual inculcation. Sokrates, at the end of the harangue, 
pnts in his usual questions tending to bring out the essence or 
definition of virtue, and soon drives Protagoras into a corner, 
bringing him to admit a view nowhere else developed in Plato, 
30 



466 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— PLATO. 

that Pleasure is the only good, Pain the only evil, and that 
the science of Good and Evil consists in Measuring, and in 
choosing between conflicting pleasures and pains — preferring 
the greater pleasure to the less, the less pain to the greater* 
For example, courage is a wise estimate of things terrible and 
things not terrible. In consistency with the doctrine that 
Knowledge is virtue, it is maintained here as elsewhere, that 
a man knowing good and evil must act upon that knowledge. 
Plato often repeats his theory of Measurement, but never 
again specifically intimates that the things to be measured are 
pleasures and pains. And neither here nor elsewhere, does he 
suppose the virtuous man taking directly into his calculation 
the pleasures and pains of other persons. 

Gorgias, one of the most renowned of the dialogues in 
point of composition, is also ethical, but at variance with the 
Protagoras, and more in accordance with Plato's predominating 
views. The professed subject is Rhetoric, which, as an art, 
Sokrates professes to hold in contempt. The dialogue begins 
with the position that men are prompted by the desire of good, 
but proceeds to the great Platonic paradox, that it is a greater 
evil to do wrong than to suffer wrong. The criminal labours 
under a mental distemper, and the best thing that can. happen 
to him, is to be punished that so he may be cured. The 
unpunished wrong-doer is more miserable than if he were 
punished. Sokrates in this dialogue maintains, in opposition 
to the thesis of Protagoras, that pleasure is not the same as 
good, that there are bad pleasures and good pains ; and a 
skilful adviser, one versed in the science of good and evil, 
must discriminate between them. He does not mean that 
those pleasures only are bad that bring an overplus of future 
pains, which would be in accordance with the previous 
dialogue. The sentiment of the dialogue is ascetic and self- 
denying.* Order or Discipline is inculcated, not as a means 
to an end, but as an end in itself. 

* ' Indeed there is nothing more remarkable in the Gorgias, than the 
manner in which Sokrates not only condemns the unmeasured, exorbitant, 
maleficent desires, but also depreciates and degrades all the actualities of 
life — all the recreative and elegant arts, including music and poetry, 
tragic as well as dithyrambic — all provision for the most essential wants, 
all protection against particular sufferings and dangers, even all service 
rendered to another person in the way of relief or of rescue — all the effec- 
tive maintenance of public organized force, such as ships, docks, walls, 
arms, &c. Immediate satisfaction or relief, and those who confer it, are 
treated with contempt, and presented as in hostility to the perfection of 
the mental structure. And it is in this point of view, that various Platonic 



PLEASURE AND PAIN. 467 

The Politikus is on the Art of Government, and gives the 
Platonic beau ideal of the One competent person, governing 
absolutely, by virtue of his scientific knowledge, and aiming at 
the good and improvement of the governed. This is merely 
another illustration of the Sokratic ideal — a despotism, anointed 
by supreme good intentions, and by an ideal skill. The Re- 
public is an enlargement of the lessons of the Politikus with- 
out the dialectic discussion. 

The postulate of the One Wise man is repeated in 
Kratylus, on the unpromising subject of Language or the 
invention of Names. 

The Philebus has a decidedly ethical character. It pro- 
pounds for enquiry the Good, the Summum Bonum. This is 
denied to be mere pleasure, and the denial is enforced by 
Sokrates challenging his opponent to choose the lot of an 
ecstatic oyster. As usual, good must be related to Intelligence ; 
and the Dialogue gives a long disquisition upon the One and 
the Many, the Theory of Ideas, the Determinate and the Inde- 
terminate. Good is a compound of Pleasure and Intelligence, 
the last predominating. Pleasure is the Indeterminate, requir- 
ing the Determinate (Knowledge) to regulate it. This is 
merely another expression for the doctrine of Measure, and 
for the common saying, that the Passions must be controlled 
by Reason. There is, also, in the dialogue, a good deal on 
the Psychology of Pleasure and Pain. Pleasure is the funda- 
mental harmony of the system ; Pain its disturbance. Bodily 
Pleasure pre-supposes pain [true only of some pleasures]. 
Mental pleasures may be without previous pain, and are there- 
fore pure pleasures. A life of Intelligence is conceivable 
without either pain or pleasure ; this is the choice of the Wise 
man, and is the nature of the gods. Desire is a mixed state, 
and comprehends body and mind. Much stress is laid on the 
moderate and tranquil pleasures ; the intense pleasures, coveted 
by mankind, belong to a distempered rather than a healthy 
state ; they are false and delusive. Pleasure is, by its nature, 
a change or transition, and cannot be a supreme end. The 
mixture of Pleasure and Intelligence is to be adjusted by the 
all-important principle of Measure or Proportion, which con- 
nects the Good with the Beautiful. 

commentators extol in an especial manner the Gorgias : as recognizing 
an Idea of Good superhuman and supernatural, radically disparate from 
pleasures and pains of any human being, and incommensurable with them ; 
an Universal Idea, which, though it is supposed to cast a distant light 
upon its particulars, is separated from them by an incalculable space, and 
is discernible only by the Platonic telescope.' (Grote, Gorgias.) 



468 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — PLATO. 

A decided asceticism is the ethical tendency of this dialogue. 
It is markedly opposed to the view of the Protagoras. Still 
greater is the opposition between it and the two Erotic 
dialogues, Phaedrus and Symposium, where Bonum and 
Pulchrum are attained in the pursuit of an ecstatic and over- 
whelming personal affection. 

The Republic starts with the question — what is Justice ? 
and, in answering it, provides the scheme of a model Republic. 
Book I. is a Sokratic colloquy, where one speaker, on being 
interrogated, defines Justice as ' rendering to every man his 
due,' and afterwards amends it to f doing good to friends, evil 
to enemies/ Another gives ' the right of the strongest/ A 
third maintains that Injustice by itself is profitable to the 
doer ; but, as it is an evil to society in general, men make laws 
against it and punish it ; in consequence of which, Justice is 
the more profitable. Sokrates, in opposition, undertakes to 
prove that Justice is good in itself, ensuring the happiness of 
the doer by its intrinsic effect on his mind ; and irrespective 
of exemption from the penalties of injustice. He reaches 
this result by assimilating an individual to a state. Justice is 
shown to be good in the entire city, and by analogy it is also 
good in the individual. He accordingly proceeds to construct 
his ideal commonwealth. In the course of this construction 
many ethical views crop out. 

The state must prescribe the religious belief, and allow no 
compositions at variance with it. The gods must always be 
set forth as the causes of good ; they must never be repre- 
sented as the authors of evil, nor as practising deceit. Neither 
is it to be allowed to represent men as unjust, yet happy ; or 
just, and yet miserable. The poetic representation of bad cha- 
racters is also forbidden. The musical training is to be adapted 
for disposing the mind to the perception of Beauty, whence it 
becomes qualified to recognize the other virtues. Useful fictions 
are to be diffused, without regard to truth. This pious fraud 
is openly recommended by Plato. 

The division of the human mind into (1) Reason or 
Intelligence; (2) Energy, Courage, Spirit, or the Military 
Virtue; and (3) Many-headed Appetite, all in mutual counter- 
play — is transferred to the State, each of the three parts being 
represented by one of the political orders or divisions of the 
community. The happiness of the man and the happiness of the 
commonwealth are attained in the same way, namely, by rea- 
lizing the four virtues — Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, Jus- 
tice ; with this condition, that Wisdom, or Reason, is sought 



PLATONIC REPUBLIC. 469 

a 

only in the Ruling caste r the Elders ; Courage, or Energy, 
only in the second caste,, the Soldiers or Guardians ; while 
Temperance and Justice (meaning almost the same thing) must 
inhere alike in all the three classes, and be the only thing ex- 
pected in the third, the Working Multitude. 

If it be now asked, what and where is Justice ? the answer 
is — 'every man to attend to his own business.' Injustice 
occurs when any one abandons his post, or meddles with what 
does not belong to him ; and more especially when any one of 
a lower division aspires to the function of a higher. Such is 
Justice for the city, and such is it in the individual ; the higher 
faculty — Reason, must control the two lower — Courage and 
Appetite. Justice is thus a sort of harmony or balance of the 
mental powers ; it is to the mind what health is to the body. 
Health is the greatest good, sickness the greatest evil, of the 
body ; so is Justice of the mind. 

It is an essential of the Platonic Republic that, among the 
guardians at least,, the sexual arrangements should be under 
public regulation, and the monopoly of one woman by one man 
forbidden : a regard to the breed of the higher caste of citizens 
requires the magistrate to see that the best couples are brought 
together, and to refuse to rear the inferior offspring of ill- 
assorted connexions. The number of births is also to be 
regulated. 

In carrying on war, special maxims of clemency are to be 
observed towards Hellenic enemies. 

The education of the Guardians must be philosophical ; it 
is for them to rise to the Idea of the good, to master the 
science of Good and Evil ; they must be emancipated from the 
notion that Pleasure is the good. To indicate the route to this 
attainment Plato gives his theory of cognition generally — the 
theory of Ideas ; — and indicates (darkly) how these sublime 
generalities are to be reached. 

The Ideal Commonwealth supposed established,, is doomed 
to degradation and decay ; passing through Timocracy, 
Oligarchy, Democracy, to Despotism, with a corresponding 
declension of happiness. The same varieties may be traced 
in the Individual ; the c despotized ' mind is the acme of Injus- 
tice and consequent misery. 

The comparative value of Pleasures is discussed. The 
[pleasures of philosophy, or wisdom (those of Reason), are 
alone true and pure ; the pleasures corresponding to the two 
other parts of the mind are inferior ; Love of Honour (from 
Courage or Energy), and Love of Money (Appetite). The 



470 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— PLATO. 

well-ordered mind — Justice — is above all things the source of 
happiness. Apart from all consequences of Justice, this is 
true ; the addition of the natural results only enhances the 
strength of the position. 

In Timjius, Plato repeats the doctrine that wickedness is to 
the mind what disease is to the body. The soul suffers from 
two distempers, madness and ignorance ; the man under pas- 
sionate heat is not wicked voluntarily. No man is bad wil- 
lingly ; but only from some evil habit of body, the effect of 
bad bringing-up [very much the view of Robert Owen]. 

The long treatise called the Laws, being a modified scheme 
of a Republic, goes over the same ground with more detail. 
We give the chief ethical points. It is the purpose of the law- 
giver to bring about happiness, and to provide all good things 
divine and human. The divine things are the cardinal virtues 
— Wisdom, Justice, Temperance, Courage ; the human are 
the leading personal advantages — Health, Beauty, Strength, 
Activity. Wealth. He requires the inculcation of self-com- 
mand, and a training in endurance. The moral and religious 
feelings are to be guided in early youth, by the influence of 
Poetry and the other Pine Arts, in whieh, as before, a strin- 
gent censorship is to be exercised ; the songs and dances are 
all to be publicly authorized. The ethical doctrine that the 
just man is happy and the unjust miserable, is to be preached ; 
and every one prohibited from contradicting it. Of all the 
titles to command in society, Wisdom is the highest, although 
policy may require it to be conjoined with some of the others 
(Birth, Age, Strength, Accident, &c). It is to be a part of 
the constitution to provide public exhortations, or sermons, 
for inculcating virtue ; Plato having now passed into an op- 
posite phase as to the value of Rhetoric, or continuous address. 
The family is to be allowed in its usual form, but with re- 
straints on the age of marriage, on the choice of the parties, 
and on the increase of the number of the population. Sexual 
intercourse is to be as far as possible confined to persons 
legally married; those departing from this rule are, at all 
events, to observe secresy. The slaves are not to be of the 
same race as the masters. As regards punishment, there is a 
great complication, owing to the author's theory that wicked- 
ness is not properly voluntary. Much of the harm done by 
persons to others is unintentional or involuntary, and is to be 
made good by reparation. For the loss of balance or self- 
control, making the essence of injustice, there must be a penal 
and educational discipline, suited to cure the moral distemper; 



SUMMARY OF PLATO'S ETHICS. 471 

not for the sake of the past, which cannot be recalled, but of 
the future. Under cover of this theory, the punishments are 
abundantly severe ; and the crimes include Heresy, for which 
there is a gradation of penalties terminating in death. 

We may now summarize the Ethics of Plato, under the 
general scheme as follows : — 

I. — The Ethical Standard, or criterion of moral Right and 
Wrong. This we have seen is, ultimately, the Science of Good 
and Evil, as determined by a Scientific or Wise man ; the 
Idea of the Good, which only a philosopher can ascend to. 
Plato gave no credit to the maxims of the existing society ; 
these were wholly unscientific. 

It is obvious that this vague and indeterminate standard 
would settle nothing practically ; no one can tell what it is. 
It is only of value as belonging to a very exalted and poetic 
conception of virtue, something that raises the imagination 
above common life into a sphere of transcendental existence. 

II. — The Psychology of Ethics. 

1. As to the Faculty of discerning Right. This is im- 
plied in the foregoing statement of the criterion. It is the 
Cognitive or Intellectual power. In the definite position 
taken up in Protagoras, it is the faculty of Measuring plea- 
sures against one another and against pains. In other dia- 
logues, measure is still the important aspect of the process, 
although the things to be measured are not given. 

2. As regards the Will. The theory that vice, if not the 
result of ignorance, is a form of madness, an uncontrollable 

,fury, a mental distemper, gives a peculiar rendering of the 
nature of man's Will. It is a kind of Necessity, not exactly 
corresponding, however, with the modern doctrine of that name. 

3. Disinterested Sentiment is not directly and plainly re- 
cognized by Plato. His highest virtue is self- regarding ; a 
concern for the Health of the Soul. 

III. — On the Bonum, or Summum Bonum, Plato is ascetic 
and self-denying. 1. We have seen that in Philebus, Pleasure 
is not good, unless united with Knowledge or Intelligence ; 
and the greater the Intelligence, the higher the pleasure. 
That the highest happiness of man is the pursuit of truth or 
Philosophy, was common to Plato and to Aristotle. 

2. Happiness is attainable only through Justice or Virtue. 
Justice is declared to be happiness, first, in itself, and secondly, 
in its consequences. Such is the importance attached to this 
maxim as a safeguard of Society, that, whether true or not, it 
is to be maintained by state authority. 



472 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— PLATO. 

3. The Psychology of Pleasure and Pain is given at length 
in the Philebus. 

IV. — With regard to the scheme of Duty. In Plato, we 
find the first statement of the four Cardinal Virtues. 

As to the Substance of the Moral Code, the references 
above made to the Republic and the Laws will show in what 
points his views differed from modern Ethics. 

Benevolence was not one of the Cardinal Virtues. 

His notions even of Reciprocity were rendered hazy and 
indistinct by his theory of Justice as an end in itself. 

The inducements, means, and stimulants to virtue, in 
addition to penal discipline, are training, persuasion, or hor- 
tatory discourse, dialectic cognition of the Ideas, and, above 
all, that ideal aspiration towards the Just, the Good, around 
which he gathered all that was fascinating in poetry, and all 
the associations of religion and divinity. Plato employed his 
powerful genius in working up a lofty spiritual reward, an 
ideal intoxication, for inciting men to the self-denying virtues. 
He was the first and one of the greatest of preachers. His 
theory of Justice is suited to preaching, and not to a scientific 
analysis of society. 

V. — The relation of Ethics to Politics is intimate, and 
even inseparable. The Civil Magistrate, as in Hobbes, supplies 
the Ethical sanction. All virtue is an affair of the state, a 
political institution. This, however, is qualified by the de- 
mand for an ideal state, and an ideal governor, by whom alone 
anything like perfect virtue can be ascertained. 

VI. — The relationship with Theology is also close. That. 
is to say, Plato was not satisfied to construct a science of good 
and evil, without conjoining the sentiments towards the Gods. 
His Theology, however, was of his own invention, and adapted 
to his ethical theory. It was necessary to suppose that the 
gods were the authors of good, in order to give countenance 
to virtue. 

Plato was the ally of the Stoics, as against the Epicureans, 
and of such modern theorists as Butler, who make virtue, 
and not happiness, the highest end of man. With him, 
discipline was an end in itself, and not a means ; and he en- 
deavoured to soften its rigour by his poetical and elevated 
Idealism. 

Although he did not preach the good of mankind, or direct 
beneficence, he undoubtedly prepared the way for it, by 
urging self-denial, which has no issue or relevance, except 
either by realizing greater happiness to Self (mere exalted 



THE CYNICS. 473 

Prudence, approved of by all sects), or by promoting the 
welfare of others. 

THE CYNICS AND THE CYRENAICS. 

These opposing sects sprang from Sokrates, and passed, 
with little modification, the one into the Stoics, the other into 
the Epicureans. Both Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynics, 
and Aristippus, the founder of the Cyrenaics, were disciples of 
Sokrates. 

Their doctrines chiefly referred to the Summum Bonum — 
the Art of Living, or of Happiness. 

The Cynics were most closely allied to Sokrates ; they, in 
fact, carried out to the full his chosen mode of life. His 
favourite maxim — that the gods had no wants, and that the 
most godlike nian was he that approached to the same state — 
was the Cynic Ideal. To subsist upon the narrowest means ; 
to acquire indifference to pain, by a discipline of endurance ; to 
despise all the ordinary pursuits of wealth and pleasure, — were 
Sokratic peculiarities, and were the beau ideal of Cynicism. 

The Cynic succession of philosophers were, (1) Antis- 
thenes, one of the most constant friends and companions of 
Sokrates ; (2) Diogenes of Sinope, the pupil of Antisthenes, 
and the best known type of the sect. (His disciple Krates, a 
Theban, was the master of Zeno, the first Stoic.) (3) 
Stilpon of Megara, (4) Menedemus of Eretria, (5) Monimus of 
Syracuse, (6) Krates. 

The two first heads of the Ethical scheme, so meagrely 
filled up by the ancient systems generally, are almost a total 
blank as regards both Cynics and Cyrenaics. 

I. — As regards a Standard of right and wrong, moral good 
or evil, they recognized nothing but obedience to the laws and 
customs of society. 

II. — They had no Psychology of a moral faculty, of the will, 
or of benevolent sentiment. The Cyrenaic Aristippus had a 
Psychology of Pleasure and Pain. 

The Cynics, instead of discussing Will, exercised it, in one 
of its most prominent forms, — self-control and endurance. 

Disinterested conduct was no part of their scheme, although 
the ascetic discipline necessarily promotes abstinence from sins 
against property, and from all the vices of public ambition. 

III. — The proper description of both systems comes under 
the Summum Bonum, or the Art of Living. 

The Cynic Ideal was the minimum of wants, the habitua- 
tion to pain, together with indifference to the common enjoy- 



474 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — CYNICS AND CYHENAICS. 

raents. The compensating reward was exemption from fear, 
anxiety, and disappointment); also, the pride of superiority to 
fellow-beings and of approximation to the gods. Looking at 
the great predominance of misery in human life, they believed 
the problem of living to consist in a mastery over all the forms 
of pain ; until this was first secured, there was to be a total 
sacrifice of pleasure. 

The Cynics were mostly, like Sokrates, men of robust 
health, and if they put their physical constitution to a severe 
test by poor living and exposure to wind and weather, they 
also saved it from the wear and tear of steady industry and 
toil. Exercise of body and of mind, with a view to strength 
and endurance, was enjoined ; but it was the drill of the 
soldier rather than the drudgery of the artisan. 

In the eyes of the public, the prominent feature of the 
Cynic was his contemptuous jeering, and sarcastic abuse of 
everybody around. The name (Cynic, dog-like) denotes this 
peculiarity. The anecdotes relating to Diogenes illustrate his 
coarse denunciation of men in general and their luxui'ious ways. 
He set at defiance all the conventions of courtesy and of decency ; 
spoke his mind on everything without fear or remorse ; and 
delighted in his antagonism to public opinion. He followed 
the public and obtrusive life of Sokrates, but instead of dia- 
lectic skill, his force lay in vituperation, sarcasm, and repartee. 
4 To Sokrates,' says Epiktetus, * Zeus assigned the cross-exa- 
mining function ; to Diogenes, the magisterial and chastising 
function; to Zeno (the Stoic), the didactic and dogmatical.' 

The Cynics had thus in fall measure one of the rewards of 
asceticism, the pride of superiority and power. They did not 
profess an end apart from their own happiness ; they believed 
and maintained that theirs was the only safe road to happiness. 
They agreed with the Cyrenaics as to the end ; they differed 
as to the means. 

The founders of the sect, being men of culture, set great 
store by education, from which, however, they excluded (as it 
would appear) both the Artistic and the Intellectual elements 
of the superior instruction of the time, namely, Music, and 
the Sciences of Geometry, Astronomy, &c. Plato's writings 
and teachings were held in low esteem. Physical training, 
self-denial and endurance, and literary or Rhetorical cultiva- 
tion, comprise the items taught by Diogenes when he became 
a slave, and was made tutor to the sons of his master. 

IV. — As to the Moral Code, the Cynics were dissenters 
from the received usages of society. They disapproved of 



ARISTIPPUS. 475 

marriage laws, and maintained the liberty of individual tastes 
in the intercourse of the sexes. Being free-thinkers in religion 
they had no respect for any of the customs founded on religion. 
V. — The collateral relations of Cynical Ethics to Politics 
and to Theology afford no scope for additional observations. 
The Cynic and Cyrenaic both stood aloof from the affairs of 
the state, and were alike disbelievers in the gods. 

The Cynics appear to have been inclined to communism 
among themselves, which was doubtless easy with their views 
as to the wants of life. It is thought not unlikely that 
Sokrates himself held views of communism both as to pro- 
perty and to wives ; being in this respect also the prompter 
of Plato (Grant's Ethics of Aristotle, Essay ii.). 

The Cyrenaic system originated with Aristippus of Cyrene, 
another hearer and companion of Sokrates. The tempera- 
ment of Aristippus was naturally inactive, easy, and luxurious ; 
nevertheless he set great value on mental cultivation and 
accomplishments. His conversations with Sokrates form one 
of the most interesting chapters of Xenophon's Memorabilia, 
and are the key to the plan of life ultimately elaborated by 
him. Sokrates finding out his disposition, repeats all the 
arguments in favour of the severe and ascetic system. He 
urges the necessity of strength, courage, energy, self-denial, 
in order to attain the post of ruler over others ; which, how- 
ever, Aristippus fences by saying that he has no ambition to 
rule ; he prefers the middle course of a free man, neither ruling 
nor ruled over. Next, Sokrates recalls the dangers and evil 
contingencies of subjection, of being oppressed, unjustly treated, 
sold into slavery, and the consequent wretchedness to one 
unhardened by an adequate discipline. It is in this argument 
that he recites the well-known apologue called the choice of 
Herakles ; in which, Virtue on the one hand, and Pleasure 
with attendant vice on the other, with their respective conse- 
quences, are set before a youth in his opening career. The 
whole argument with Aristippus was purely prudential ; but 
Aristippus was not convinced nor brought over to the Sokratic 
ideal. He nevertheless adopted a no less prudential and self- 
denying plan of his own. 

Aristippus did not write an account of his system; and the 
particulars of his life, which would show how he acted it, are 
but imperfectly preserved. He was the first theorist to avow 
and maintain that Pleasure, and the absence of Pain, are the 
proper, the direct, the immediate, the sole end of living ; not of 
course mere present pleasures and present relief from pain, but 



476 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— CYNICS AND CYRENAICS. 

present and future taken in one great total. He would sur- 
render present pleasure, and incur present pain, with a view to 
greater future good ; but lie did not believe in the necessity 
of that extreme surrender and renunciation enjoined by the 
Cynics. He gratified all his appetites and cravings within 
the limits of safety. He could sail close upon the island of 
Calypso without surrendering himself to the sorceress. In- 
stead of deadening the sexual appetite he gave it scope, and 
yet resisted the dangerous consequences of associating with 
Hetasrse. In his enjoyments he was free from jealousies; 
thinking it no derogation to his pleasure that others had the 
same pleasure. Having thus a fair share of natural indul- 
gences, he dispenses with the Cynic pride of superiority and 
the luxury of contemning other men. Strength of will was 
required for this course no less than for the Cynic life. 

Aristippus put forward strongly the impossibility of rea- 
lizing all the Happiness that might seem within one's reach ; 
such were the attendant and deterring evils, that many plea- 
sures had to be foregone by the wise man. Sometimes even 
the foolish person attained more pleasure than the wise ; such 
is the lottery of life ; but, as a general rule, the fact would be 
otherwise. The wisest could not escape the natural evils r 
pain and death ; but envy, passionate love, and superstition, 
being the consequences of vain and mistaken opinion, might be 
conquered by a knowledge of the real nature of Good and EviL 

As a proper appendage to such a system, Aristippus 
sketched a Psychology of Pleasure and Pain, which was 
important as a beginning, and is believed to have brought the 
subject into prominence. The soul comes under three condi- 
tions, — a gentle, smooth, equable motion, corresponding to 
Pleasure ; a rough, violent motion, which is Pain ; and a calm,. 
quiescent state, indifference or Unconsciousness. More re*- 
markable is the farther assertion that Pleasure is only present 
or realized consciousness ; the memory of pleasures past,, and 
the idea of pleasures to come, are not to be counted ; the 
painful accompaniments of desire, hope, and fear, are sufficient 
to neutralize any enjoyment that may arise from ideal bliss, 
Consequently, the happiness of a life means the sum total of 
these moments of realized or present pleasure. He recognized 
pleasures of the mind, as well as of the body ; sympathy with 
the good fortunes of friends or country gives a thrill of 
genuine and lively joy. Still, the pleasures and the pains of 
the body, and of one's own self, are more intense ; witness 
the bodily inflictions used in punishing offenders. 



THE CHIEF GOOD. 477 

The Cyrenaics denied that there is anything just, or 
honourable, or base, by nature ; all depended on the laws and 
customs. These laws and customs the wise man obeys, to 
avoid punishment and discredit from the society where he 
lives ; doubtless, also, from higher motives, if the political 
constitution, and his fellow citizens generally, can inspire him 
with respectu 

Neither the Cynics nor the Cyrenaics made any profession 
of generous or disinterested impulses. 

ARISTOTLE. £384-322 B.C.] 

Three treatises on Ethics have come down associated with 
the name of Aristotle; one large work, the JSTicomachean 
Ethics, referred to by general consent as the chief and im- 
portant source of Aristotle's views; and two smaller works, 
the Eudemian Ethics, and the Magna Moralia, attributed by 
later critics to his disciples. Even of the large work, which 
consists of ten books, three books (V. VI. VII. ), recurring in 
the Eudemian Ethics, are considered by Sir A. Grant, though 
not by other critics, to have been composed by Eudemus, the 
supposed author of this second treatise, and a leading disciple 
of Aristotle. 

Like many other Aristotelian treatises, the Nicomachean 
Ethics is deficient in method and consistency on any view 
of its composition. But the profound and sagacious remarks 
scattered throughout give it a permanent interest, as the 
work of a great mind. There may be extracted from it 
certain leading doctrines, whose point of departure was 
Platonic, although greatly modified and improved by the 
genius and personality of Aristotle. 

Our purpose will be best served by a copious abstract of 
the Nicomachean Ethics. 

Book First discusses the Chief Good, or the Highest End 
of all human endeavours. Every exercise of the human 
powers aims at some good; all the arts of life have their 
several ends — medicine, ship-building, generalship. Bat the 
ends of these special arts are all subordinate to some higher end; 
which end is the chief good, and the subject of the highest art 
of all, the Political ; for as Politics aims at the welfare of the 
state, or aggregate of indviduals, it is identical with and com- 
prehends the welfare of the individual (Chaps. I., II.). 

As regards the method of the science, the highest exactness 
is not attainable ; the political art studies what is just, 
honourable, and good ; and these are matters about which the 



478 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— ARISTOTLE. 

utmost discrepancy of opinion prevails. From such premises, 
the conclusions which we draw can only be probabilities. 
The man of experience and cultivation will expect nothing 
more. Youths, who are inexperienced in the concerns of life, 
and given to follow their impulses, can hardly appreciate our 
reasoning, and will derive no benefit from it : but reason- 
able men will find the knowledge highly profitable (III.). 

Resuming the main question — What is the highest prac- 
tical good— the aim of the all- comprehending political science? 
— we find an agreement among men as to the name happiness 
(evhai/iovla) ; but great differences as to the nature of the 
thing. The many regard it as made up of the tangible 
elements — pleasures, wealth, or honour ; while individuals vary 
in their estimate according to each man's state for the time 
being ; the sick placing it in health, the poor in wealth, the 
consciously ignorant in knowledge. On the other hand, cer- 
tain philosophers [in allusion to Plato] set up an absolute 
good, — an Idea of the Good, apart from all the particulars, yet 
imparting to each its property of being good (IV.). 

Referring to men's lives (as a clue to their notions of the 
good), we find three prominent varieties ; the life of pleasure 
or sensuality, — the political life, aspiring to honour, — and the 
contemplative life. The first is the life of the brutes, although 
countenanced by men high in power. The second is too 
precarious, as depending on others, and is besides only a means 
to an end — namely, our consciousness of our own merits ; for 
the ambitious man seeks to be honoured for his virtue and by 
good judges — thus showing that he too regards virtue as the 
superior good. Yet neither will virtue satisfy all the con- 
ditions. The virtuous man may slumber or pass his life in 
inactivity, or may experience the maximum of calamity ; and 
such a man cannot be regarded as happy. The money-lender is 
still less entitled, for he is an unnatural character ; and money 
is obviously good as a means. So that there remains only the 
life of contemplation ; respecting which more presently (V.). 

To a review of the Platonic doctrine, Aristotle devotes a 
whole chapter. He urges against it various objections, very 
much of a piece with those brought against the theory of Ideas 
generally. If there be but one good, there should be but 
one science ; the alleged Idea is merely a repetition of the 
phenomena; the recognized goods (i.e., varieties of good) cannot 
be brought under one Idea; moreover, even granting the reality 
of such an Idea, it is useless for all practical purposes. What 
our science seeks is Good, human and attainable (VI.) . 



THE SUPREME END NOT A MEANS. 479 

The Supreme End is what is not only chosen as an End, 
but is never chosen except as an End : not chosen both for 
itself and with a view to something ulterior. It must thus 
be — (1) An end-in-itself 7 pursued for its own sake ; (2) it 
must farther be self-sufficing, leaving no outstanding wants — 
man's sociability being taken into account and gratified. 
Happiness is such an end ; but we must state more clearly 
wherein happiness consists. 

This will appear, if we examine what is the work appro- 
priate and peculiar to man. Every artist, the sculptor, car- 
penter, currier (so too the eye and the hand), has his own 
peculiar work : and good, to him, consists in his performing 
that work well. Man also has his appropriate and peculiar 
work : not merely living — for that he has in common with 
vegetables ; nor the life of sensible perception — for that he 
has in common with other animals, horses, oxen, &c. There 
remains the life of man as a rational being : that is, as a 
being possessing reason along with other mental elements, 
which last are controllable or modifiable by reason. This 
last life is the peculiar work or province of man. For our 
purpose, we must consider man, not merely as possessing, but 
as actually exercising and putting in action, these mental 
capacities. Moreover, when we talk generally of the work or 
province of an artist, we always tacitly imply a complete and 
excellent artist in his own craft : and so likewise when we 
speak of the work of a man, we mean that work as 
performed by a complete and competent man. Since the 
work of man, therefore, consists in the active exercise 
of the mental capapacities, conformably to reason, the 
supreme good of man will consist in performing this work 
with excellence or virtue. Herein he will obtain happiness, 
if we assume continuance throughout a full period of life : 
one day or a short time is not sufficient for happiness 

(VII). 

Aristotle thus lays down the outline of man's supreme 
Good or Happiness : which he declares to be the beginning or 
principle (apxv) °f n ^ s deductions, and to be obtained in the 
best way that the subject admits. He next proceeds to com- 
pare this outline with the various received opinions on the 
subject of happiness, showing that it embraces much of what 
has been considered essential by former philosophers : such 
as being ' a good of the mind/ and not a mere external good : 
being equivalent to 'living well and doing well,' another defi- 
nition; consisting in virtue (the Cynics) ; in practical wisdom 



480 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — ARISTOTLE.- 

— (f)p6i/7j(TL9 (Sokrates) ; in philosophy ; or in all these coupled 
with pleasure (Plato, in the Philebus). Agreeing with those 
who insisted on virtue, Aristotle considers his own theory an 
improvement, by re quiring virtue in act, and not simply in pos- 
session. Moreover, he contends that to the virtuous man, vir- 
tuous performance is in itself pleasurable ; so that no extraneous 
source of pleasure is needed. Such (he says) is the judgment 
of the truly excellent man ; which must be taken as conclusive 
respecting the happiness, as well as the honourable pre-emi- 
nence of the best mental exercises. Nevertheless, he admits 
(so far complying with the Cyrenaics) that some extraneous 
conditions cannot be dispensed with ; the virtuous man can 
hardly exhibit his virtue in act, without some aid from friends 
and property ; nor can he be happy if his person is disgusting 
to behold or his parentage vile (VIII.). 

This last admission opens the door to those that place 
good fortune in the same line with happiness, and raises the 
question, how happiness is attained. By teaching ? By 
habitual exercise ? By divine grace ? By Fortune ? If 
there be any gift vouchsafed by divine grace to man, it ought 
to be this ; but whether such be the case or not, it is at any 
rate the most divine and best of all acquisitions. To ascribe 
such an acquisition as this to Fortune would be absurd. 
Nature, which always aims at the best, provides that it shall 
be attained, through a certain course of teaching and training, 
by all who are not physically or mentally disqualified. It thus 
falls within the scope of political science, whose object is to 
impart the best character and active habits to the citizens. It 
is with good reason that we never call a horse happy, for he 
can never reach such an attainment ; nor indeed can a child 
be so called while yet a child, for the same reason ; though in 
his case we may hope for the future, presuming on a fall term 
of life, as was before postulated (IX.). But this long term 
allows room for extreme calamities and change in a man's lot. 
Are we then to say, with Solon, that no one can be called 
happy so long as he lives ? or that the same man may often 
pass backwards and forwards from happiness to misery ? No ; 
this only shows the mistake of resting happiness upon so un- 
sound a basis as external fortune. The only true basis of it 
is the active manifestation of mental excellence, which no ill 
fortune can efface from a man's mind (X.). Such a man will 
bear calamity, if it comes, with dignity, and can never be 
made thoroughly miserable. If he be moderately supplied as 
to external circumstances, he is to be styled happy ; that is, 



WHEREIN DOES MAN'S EXCELLENCE CONSIST ? 481 

happy as a man — as far as man can reasonably expect. Even 
after his decease he will be affected, yet only feebly affected, 
by the good or ill fortune of bis surviving children. Aristotle 
evidently assigns little or no value to presumed posthumous 
happiness (XL). 

In his love of subtle distinctions, he asks, Is happiness a 
thing admirable in itself, or a thing praiseworthy ? It is ad- 
mirable in itself; for what is praiseworthy has a relative 
character, and is praised as conducive to some ulterior end ; 
while the chief good must be an End in itself, for the sake of 
which everything else is done (XII.). [This is a defective 
recognition of Relativity.] 

Having assumed as one of the items of his definition, that 
man's happiness must be in his special or characteristic work, 
performed with perfect excellence, — Aristotle now proceeds to 
settle wherein that excellence consists. This leads to a classifi- 
cation of the parts of the soul. The first distribution is, into 
Rational and Irrational ; whether these two are separable in 
fact, or only logically separable (like concave and convex), is 
immaterial to the present enquiry. Of the irrational, the 
lowest portion is the Vegetative (0vt^oV), which seems most 
active in sleep ; a state where bad men and good are on a par, 
and which is incapable of any human excellence. The next 
portion is the Appetitive (eV^i/^^T^oV), which is not thus in- 
capable. It partakes of reason, yet it includes something con- 
flicting with reason. These conflicting tendencies are usually 
modifiable by reason, and may become in the temperate man 
completely obedient to reason. There remains Reason — the 
highest and sovereign portion of the soul. Human excellence 
(apeTrj) or virtue, is either of the Appetitive part, — moral 
(rjOifcrj) virtue ; or of the Reason — intellectual (Siavorj-ucrj) vir- 
tue. Liberality and temperance are Moral virtues ; philosophy, 
intelligence, and wisdom, Intellectual (XIII. ). 

Such is an outline of the First Book, having for its subject 
the Chief Good, the Supreme End of man. 

Book Second embraces the consideration of points relative 
to the Moral Virtues ; it also commences Aristotle's celebrated 
definition and classification of the virtues or excellencies. 

Whereas intellectual excellence is chiefly generated and 
improved by teaching, moral excellence is a result of habit 
(e#o<?) ; whence its name (Ethical). Hence we may see that 
moral excellence is no inherent part of our nature : if it were, 
it could not be reversed by habit — any more than a stone can 
acquire from any number of repetitions the habit of moving 
31 



4:82 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— ARISTOTLE. 

upward, or fire the habit of moving downward. These moral 
excellencies are neither a part of our nature, nor yet contrary 
to our nature : we are by nature fitted to take them on, but 
they are brought to consummation through habit. It is not 
with them as with our senses, where nature first gives us the 
power to see and hear, and where we afterwards exercise that 
power. Moral virtues are acquired only by practice. We 
learn to build or to play the harp, by building or playing the 
harp : so too we become just or courageous, by a course of 
just or courageous acts. This is attested by all lawgivers in 
their respective cities ; all of them shape the characters of 
their respective citizens, by enforcing habitual practice. Some 
do it well ; others ill ; according to the practice, so will be 
the resulting character ; as he that is practised in building 
badly, will be a bad builder in the end ; and he that begins 
on a bad habit of playing the harp, becomes confirmed into a 
bad player. Hence the importance of making the young 
perform good actions habitually and from the beginning. 
The permanent ethical acquirements are generated by uni- 
form and persistent practice (L). [This is the earliest state- 
ment of the philosophy of habit.'] 

Everything thus turns upon practice : and Aristotle re- 
minds us that his purpose here is, not simply to teach what 
virtue is, but to produce virtuous agents. How are we to 
know what the practice should be ? It must be conformable 
to right reason : every one admits this, and we shall explain 
it further in a future book. But let us proclaim at once, 
that in regard to moral action, as in regard to health, no 
exact rules can be laid down. Amidst perpetual variability, 
each agent must in the last resort be guided by the circum- 
stances of the case. Still, however, something may be done 
to help him. Here Aristotle proceeds to introduce the famous 
doctrine of the Mean. We may err, as regards health, both 
by too much and by too little of exercise, food, or drink. 
The same holds good in regard to temperance, courage, and 
the other excellences (II. )• 

His next remark is another of his characteristic doctrines, 
that the test of a formed habit of virtue, is to feel no pain; he 
that feels pain in brave acts is a coward. Whence he proceeds 
to illustrate the position, that moral virtue (rjOttcrj aperrj) has 
to do with pleasures and pains. A virtuous education consists 
in making us feel pleasure and pain at proper objects, and on 
proper occasions. Punishment is a discipline of pain. Some 
philosophers (the Cynics) have been led by this consideration 



VIRTUE DEFINED. 483 

to make virtue consist in apathy, or insensibility ; but Aristotle 
would regulate, and not extirpate our sensibilities (III.)« 

But does it not seem a paradox to say (according to the 
doctrine of habit in I.), that a man becomes just, by performing 
just actions ; since, if he performs just actions, he is already 
just ? The answer is given by a distinction drawn in a com- 
parison with the training in the common arts of life. That a 
man is a good writer or musician, we see by his writing or 
his music ; we take no account of the state of his mind in 
other respects : if he knows how to do this, it is enough. But 
in respect to moral excellence, such knowledge is not enough : 
a man may do just or temperate acts, but he is not necessarily 
a just or temperate man, unless he does them with right 
intention and on their own account. This state of the 
internal mind, which is requisite to constitute the just and 
temperate man, follows upon the habitual practice of just and 
temperate acts, and follows upon nothing else. But most 
men are content to talk without any such practice. They 
fancy erroneously that hnowing, without doing, will make a 
good man. [We have here the reaction against the Sokratic 
doctrine of virtue, and also the statement of the necessity of 
a proper motive, in order to virtue.] 

Aristotle now sets himself to find a definition of virtue, 
per genus et differ enti am. There are three qualities in the 
Soul — Passions (ira%), as Desire, Anger, Fear, &c, followed 
by pleasure or pain; Capacities or Faculties (BvvdjbLeis), as our 
capability of being angry, afraid, affected by pity, &c. ; Fixed 
tendencies, acquirements, or states (ef^?). To which of the 
three does virtue or excellence belong ? It cannot be a 
Passion ; for passions are not in themselves good or evil, and 
are not accompanied with deliberate choice {Trpoaip^ai^), will, 
or intention. Nor is it a Faculty : for we are not praised or 
blamed because we can have such or such emotions ; and 
moreover our faculties are innate, which virtue is not. 
Accordingly, virtue, or excellence, must be an acquirement 
(e£«) — a State (V.). This is the genus. 

Now, as to the differentia, which brings us to a more specific 
statement of the doctrine of the Mean. The specific excel- 
lence of virtue is to be got at from quantity in the abstract, 
from which we derive the conceptions of more, less, and 
equal; or excess, defect, and mean ; the equal being the mean 
between excess and defect. But in the case of moral actions, 
the arithmetical mean may not hold (for example, six between 
two and ten) ; it must be a mean relative to the individual ; 



484 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— ARISTOTLE. 

Milo must have more food than a novice in the training 
school. In the arts, we call a work perfect, when anything 
either added or taken away would spoil it. Now, virtue, 
which, like Nature, is better and more exact than any art, has 
for its subject-matter, passions and actions ; all which are 
wrong either in defect or in excess. Virtue aims at the mean 
between them, or the maximum of Good : which implies a 
correct estimation of all the circumstances of the act, — when 
we ought to do it — under what conditions — towards whom — 
for what purpose — in what manner, &c. This is the praise- 
worthy mean, which virtue aspires to. We may err in many 
ways (for evil, as the Pj'thagoreans said, is of the nature of 
the Infinite, good of the Finite), but we can do right only in 
one way ; so much easier is the path of error. 

Combining then this differentia with the genus, as above 
established, the complete definition is given thus — 4 Virtue is 
an acquirement or fixed state, tending by deliberate purpose 
(genus), towards a mean relative to us (difference),' To which 
is added the following all-important qualification, ' determined 
by reason (\070s), and as the jtidicious man (o (ppovi/jLos) would 
determine.' [Such is the doctrine of the Mean, which com- 
bines the practical matter-of-fact quality of moderation, recog- 
nized by all sages, with a high and abstract conception, starting 
from the Pythagorean remark quoted by Aristotle, 'the Infinite, 
or Indefinite, is evil, the Finite or the Definite is good/ and 
re-appearing in Plato as 'conformity to measure ' (peTpioTTjs), 
by which he (Plato) proposes to discriminate between good 
and evil. The concluding qualification of virtue-—' a rational 
determination, according to the ideal judicious man' — is an 
attempt to assign a standard or authority for what is the 
proper ' Mean ;' an authority purely ideal or imaginary ; the 
actual authority being always, rightly or wrongly, the society 
of the time.] 

Aristotle admits that his doctrine of Virtue being a mean, 
cannot have an application quite universal ; because there are 
some acts that in their very name connote badness, which 
are wrong therefore, not from excess or defect, but in them- 
selves (VI.). He next proceeds to resolve his general doc- 
trine into particulars ; enumerating the different virtues 
stated, each as a mean, between two extremes — Courage, 
Temperance, Liberality, Magnanimity, Magnificence, Meek- 
ness, Amiability or Friendliness, Truthfulness, Justice (VII.). 
They are described in detail in the two following books. In 
chap. VIII., he qualifies his doctrine of Mean and Extremes, 



THE VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY. 485 

by the remark that one Extreme may be much farther 
removed from the Mean than the other. Cowardice and 
Rashness are the extremes of Courage, but Cowardice is 
farthest removed from the Mean. 

The concluding chapter (IX.) of the Book reflects on the 
great difficulty of hitting the mean in all things, and of 
correctly estimating all the requisite circumstances, in each 
particular case. He gives as practical rules : — To avoid at 
all events the worst extreme ; to keep farthest from our 
natural bent ; to guard against the snare of pleasure. Slight 
mistakes on either side are little blamed, but grave and 
conspicuous cases incur severe censure. Yet how far the 
censure ought to go, is difficult to lay down beforehand in 
general terms. There is the same difficulty in regard to all 
particular cases, and all the facts of sense : which must 
be left, after all, to the judgment of Sensible Perception 

Book Third takes up the consideration of the Virtues in 
detail, but prefaces them with a dissertation, occupying five 
chapters, on the Voluntary and Involuntary. Since praise 
and blame are bestowed only on voluntary actions, — the in- 
voluntary being pardoned, and even pitied, — it is requisite to 
define Voluntary and Involuntary. What is done under 
physical compulsion, or through ignorance, is clearly involun- 
tary. What is done under the fear of greater evils is partly 
voluntary, and partly involuntary. Such actions are voluntary 
in the sense of being a man's own actions ; involuntary in 
that they are not chosen on their own account ; being praised 
or blamed according to the circumstances. There are cases 
where it is difficult to say which of two conflicting pressures 
ought to preponderate, and compulsion is an excuse often 
misapplied : but compulsion, in its strict sense, is not strength 
of motive at all ; it is taking the action entirely out of our 
own hands. As regards Ignorance, a difference is made. 
Ignorance of a general rule is matter for censure ; ignorance 
of particular circumstances may be excused. [This became the 
famous maxim of law, — 'Ignorantia facti excusat, ignorantia 
juris non excusat.'] If the agent, when better informed, 
repents of his act committed in ignorance, he affords good 
proof that the act done was really involuntary. Acts done 
from anger or desire (which are in the agent's self) are not to 
be held as involuntary. (1) If they were, the actions of brutes 
and children would be involuntary. (2) Some of these acts 
are morally good and approved. (3) Obligation often attaches 



486 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — ARISTOTLE. 

to these feelings. (4) What is done from desire is pleasant ; 
the involuntary is painful. (5) Errors of passion are to be 
eschewed, no less than those of reason (I.). 

The next point is the nature of Purpose, Determination, or 
Deliberate Preference (7rpoatpe<n<i), which is in the closest 
kindred with moral excellence, and is even more essential, in 
the ethical estimate, than acts themselves. This is a part of the 
Voluntary ; but not co-extensive therewith. For it excludes 
sudden and unpremeditated acts; and is not shared by irra- 
tional beings. It is distinct from desire, from anger, from wish, 
and from opinion ; with all which it is sometimes confounded. 
Desire is often opposed to it ; the incontinent man acts upon 
his desires, but without any purpose, or even against his pur- 
pose ; the continent man acts upon his purpose, but against 
his desires. Purpose is still more distinct from anger, and is 
even distinct (though in a less degree) from wish (fiov\r)(n?), 
which is choice of the End, while Purpose is of the Means ; 
moreover, we sometimes wish for impossibilities, known as 
such, but we never purpose them. Nor is purpose identical 
with opinion (dofa), which relates to truth and falsehood, not 
to virtue and vice. It is among our voluntary proceedings, 
and includes intelligence ; but is it identical with pre-deli- 
berated action and its results ? (II.) 

To answer this query, Aristotle analyzes the process of 
Deliberation, as to its scope, and its mode of operation. We 
exclude from deliberation things Eternal, like the Kosmos, 
or the incommensurability of the side and the diagonal of a 
square ; also things mutable, that are regulated by necessity, 
by nature, or by chance ; things out of our power ; also final 
ends of action, for we deliberate only about the means to ends. 
The deliberative process is compared to the investigation of a 
geometrical problem. We assume the end, and enquire by 
what means it can be produced ; then again, what will pro- 
dace the means, until we at last reach something that we our- 
selves can command. If, after such deliberation, we see our 
way to execution, we form a Purpose, or Deliberate Preference 
(irpoalpecns;). Purpose is then definable as a deliberative 
appetency of things in our power (III.). 

'Next is started the important question as to the choice of 
the final End. Deliberation and Purpose respect means ; our 
Wish respects the End — but what is the End that we wish ? 
Two opinions are noticed ; according to one (Plato) we are 
moved to the good ; according to the other, to the apparent 
good. Both opinions are unsatisfactory ; the one would make 



VIKTUE AND VICE AEE VOLUNTARY. 487 

out an incorrect choice to be no choice at all ; the other would 
take away all constancy from ends. 

Aristotle settles the point by distinguishing, in this case 
as in others, between what bears a given character simply 
and absolutely, and what bears the same character relatively 
to this or that individual. The object of Wish, simply, 
truly, aud absolutely, is the Good; while the object of Wish, 
to any given individual, is what appears Good to him. But 
by the Absolute here, Aristotle explains that he means what 
appears good to the virtuous and intelligent man ; who is 
is declared, here as elsewhere, to be the infallible standard ; 
while most men, misled by pleasure, choose what is not truly 
good. In like manner, Aristotle affirms, that those substances 
are truly and absolutely wholesome, which are wholesome to 
the healthy and well-constituted man ; other substances may 
be wholesome to the sick or degenerate. Aristotle's Absolute 
is thus a Relative with its correlate chosen or imagined by 
himself. 

He then proceeds to maintain that virtue and vice are 
voluntary, and in our own power. The arguments are these. 
(1) If it be in our power to act right, the contrary is 
equally in our own power ; hence vice is as much volun- 
tary as virtue. (2) Man must be admitted to be the origin 
of his own actions. (3) Legislators and others punish 
men for wickedness, and confer honour on good actions ; 
even culpable ignorance and negligence are punished. (4) 
Our character itself, or our fixed acquirements, are in our 
power, being produced by our successive acts ; men be- 
come intemperate, by acts of drunkenness. (5) Not only 
the defects of the mind, but the infirmities of the body 
also, are blamed, when arising through our own neglect and 
want of training. (6) Even if it should be said that all men 
aim at the apparent good, but cannot control their mode 
of conceiving ((fiavTcurla) the end ; still each person, being by 
his acts the cause of his own fixed acquirements, must be to a 
certain extent the cause of his own conceptions. On this head, 
too, Aristotle repeats the clenching argument, that the sup- 
posed imbecility of conceiving would apply alike to virtue and 
to vice ; so that if virtuous action be regarded as voluntary, 
vicious action must be so regarded likewise. It must be 
remembered that a man's fixed acquirements or habits are not 
in his own power, in the same sense and degree in which his 
separate acts are in his own power. Each act, from first to 
last, is alike in his power ; but in regard to the habit, it is 



488 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — AKISTOTLE. 

only tho initiation thereof that is thoroughly in his power ; 
the habit, like a distemper, is taken on by imperceptible steps 
in advance (V.). 

[In the foregoing account of the Ethical questions con- 
nected with the Will, Aristotle is happily unembroiled with 
the modern controversy. The mal-ajpropos of ' Freedom I had 
not been applied to voluntary action. Accordingly, he treats 
the whole question from the inductive side, distinguishing the 
cases where people are praised or blamed for their conduct, 
from those where praise and blame are inapplicable as being 
powerless. It would have been well if the method had never 
been departed from ; a sound Psychology would have im- 
proved the induction, but would never have introduced any 
question except as to the relative strength of the different 
feelings operating as motives to voluntary conduct. 

In one part of his argument, however, where he maintains 
that vice must be voluntary, because its opposite, virtue, is 
voluntary, he is already touching on the magical island of the 
bad enchantress; allowing a question of fact to be swayed 
by the notion of factitious dignity. Virtue is assumed to be 
voluntary, not on the evidence of fact, but because there would 
be an indignity cast on it, to suppose otherwise. TsTow, this 
consideration, which Aristotle gives way to on various occa- 
sions, is the motive underlying the objectionable metaphor.] 

After the preceding digression on the Voluntary and In- 
voluntary, Aristotle takes up the consideration of the Virtues 
in order, beginning with Coukage, which was one of the 
received cardinal virtues, and a subject of frequent discussion. 
(Plato, Laches, Protagoras, 'Republic, &c.) 

Courage (aydpeia), the mean between timidity and fool- 
hardiness, has to do with evils. All evils are objects of fear ; 
but there are some evils that even the brave man does right to 
fear — as disgrace. Poverty or disease he ought not to fear. Yet, 
he will not acquire the reputation of courage from, not fearing 
these, nor will he acquire it if he be exempt from fear when 
about to be scourged. Again, if a man be afraid of envy from 
others, or of insults to his children or wife, he will not for that 
reason be regarded as a coward. It is by being superior to the 
fear of great evils, that a man is extolled as courageous ; and 
the greatest of evils is death, since it is a final close, as well of 
good as of evil. Hence the dangers of war are the greatest 
occasion of courage. But the cause must be honourable (VI.). 

Thus the key to true courage is the quality or merit of the 
action. That man is brave, who both fears, and affronts 



COURAGE INCLUDES SELF-SACRIFICE. 489 

without fear, what he ought and when he ought : who suffers 
and acts according to the value of the cause, and according to 
a right judgment of it. The opposites or extremes of courage 
include (1) Deficiency of fear; (2) Excess of fear, cowardice ; 
(3) Deficiency of daring, another formula for cowardice ; (4) 
Excess of daring, Eashness. Between these, Courage is the 
mean (VII. ). 

Aristotle enumerates five analogous forms of quasi- courage, 
approaching more or less to genuine courage. (1) The first, 
most like to the true, is political courage, which is moved to 
encounter danger by the Punishments and the Honours of 
society. The desire of honour rises to virtue, and is a noble 
spring of action. (2) A second kind is the effect of Experi- 
ence, which dispels seeming terrors, and gives skill to meet 
real danger. (3) Anger, Spirit, Energy (Ovjulos) is a species of 
courage, founded on physical power and excitement, but not 
under the guidance of high emotions. (4) The Sanguine 
temperament, by overrating the chances of success, gives 
courage. (5) Lastly, Ignorance of the danger may have the 
same effect as courage (VIII.), 

Courage is mainly connected with pain and loss. Men 
are called brave for the endurance of pain, even although it 
bring pleasure in the end, as to the boxer who endures bruises 
from the hope of honour. Death is painful, and most so to 
the man that by his virtue has made life valuable. Such a 
man is to be considered more courageous, as a soldier, than a 
mercenary with little to lose (IX.). 

[The account of Courage thus given is remarkably ex- 
haustive ; although the constituent parts might have been 
more carefully disentangled. A clear line should be drawn 
between two aspects of courage. The one is the resistance 
to Fear properly so called \ that is, to the perturbation that 
exaggerates coming evil : a courageous man, in this sense, is 
one that possesses the true measure of impending danger, and 
acts according to that, and not according to an excessive 
measure. The other aspect of Courage, is what gives it all 
its nobleness as a virtue, namely, Self-sacrifice, or the de- 
liberate encountering of evil, for some honourable or virtuous 
cause. When a man knowingly risks his life in battle for his 
country, he may be called courageous, but he is still better 
described as a heroic and devoted man. 

Inasmuch as the leading form of heroic devotion, in the 
ancient world, was exposure of life in war, Self-sacrifice was 
presented under the guise of Courage, and had no independent 



490 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— ARISTOTLE. 

standing as a cardinal virtue. From this circumstance, 
paganism is made to appear in a somewhat disadvantageous 
light, as regards self-denying duties.] 

Next in order among the excellences or virtues of the 
irrational department of mind is Temperance, or Moderation,. 
(atvcfipoovvrj), a mean or middle state in the enjoyment of plea- 
sure. Pleasures are mental and bodily. With the mental^, as 
love of learning or of honour, temperance is not concerned. 
'Nor with the bodily pleasures of muscular exercise, of hearing 
and of smell, but only with the animal pleasures of touch and 
taste : in fact, sensuality resides in touch ; the pleasure of 
eating being a mode of contact (X.). 

In the desires natural and common to men,, as eating and 
the nuptial couch, men are given to err, and error is usually on 
the side of excess. But it is in the case of special tastes or pre- 
ferences, that people are most frequently intemperate. Tem- 
perance does not apply to enduring pains, except those of 
abstinence from pleasures. The extreme of insensibility to 
pleasure is rarely found, and has no name.. The temperate 
man has the feelings of pleasure and pain, but moderates his 
desires according to right reason (XI.). He desires what he 
ought ? when, he ought, and as he ought : correctly estimating 
each separate case (XII.). The question is raised, which is most 
voluntary, Cowardice or Intemperance ? (1) Intemperance 
is more voluntary than Cowardice, for the one consists in 
choosing pleasure, while in the other there is a sort of com- 
pulsory avoidance of pain. (2) Temperance is easier to 
acquire as a habit than Courage. (3) In Intemperance,, the 
particular acts are voluntary, although not the habit ; in 
Cowardice, the first acts are involuntary, while by habit, it 
tends to become voluntary (XII.). 

[Temperance is the virtue most suited to the formula of 
the Mean, although the settling of what is the mean depends 
after all upon a man's own judgment. Aristotle does not 
recognize asceticism as a thing existing. His Temperance is 
moderation in the sensual pleasures of eating and love.] 

Book Fourth proceeds with the examination of the Vir- 
tues or Ethical Excellences. 

Liberality (iXevOepioirj?), in the matter of property, is the 
mean of Prodigality and Illiberality. The right uses of 
money are spending and giving,. Liberality consists in giving 
willingly, from an honourable motive, to proper persons, in 
proper quantities, and at proper times ; each individual case 
being measured by correct reason. If such measure be not 



LIBERALITY. — MAGNIFICENCE. — MAGNANIMITY. 49 1 

taken, or if the gift be not made willingly, it is not liberality. 
The liberal man is often so free as to leave little to himself. 
This virtue is one more frequent in the inheritors than in the 
makers of fortunes. Liberality beyond one's means is prodi- 
gality. The liberal man will receive only from proper sources 
and in proper quantities. Of the extremes, prodigality is 
more curable than illiberality. The faults of prodigality are, 
that it must derive supplies from improper sources ; that it 
gives to the wrong objects, and is usually accompanied with 
intemperance. Illiberality is incurable : it is confirmed by 
age, and is more congenial to men generally than prodigality. 
Some of the illiberal fall short in giving — those called stingy, 
close-fisted, and so on ; but do not desire what belongs to 
other people. Others are excessive in receiving from all 
sources ; such are they that ply disreputable xrades (I.). 

Magnificence (juLe^aXowpeTreia) is a grander kind of Liber- 
ality ; its characteristic is greatness of expenditure, with suit- 
ableness to the person, the circumstances, and the purpose. 
The magnificent man takes correct measure of each \ he is in 
his wav a man of science (o £e /me^a\o7rpe7rrj9 iTTiGTi^fXovi i'oiice — 
II.). The motive must be honourable, the outlay unstinted, 
and the effect artistically splendid. The service of the gods, 
hospitality to foreigners, public works, and gifts, are proper 
occasions. Magnificence especially becomes the well-born 
and the illustrious. The house of the magnificent man will 
be of suitable splendour ; everything that he does will show 
taste and propriety. The extremes, or corresponding defects 
of character, are, on the one side, vulgar, tasteless profusion, 
and on the other, meanness or pettiness, which for some 
paltry saving will spoil the effect of a great outlay (II.). 

Magnanimity, or High-mindedness (/^aXo^^m), loftiness 
of spirit, is the culmination of the virtues. It is concerned 
with greatness. The high-minded man is one that, being 
worthy, rates himself at his real worth, and neither more 
(which is vanity) nor less (which is littleness of mind). Now, 
worth has reference to external goods, of which the greatest is 
honour. The high-minded man must be in the highest degree 
honourable, for which he must be a good man ; honour being 
the prize of virtue. He will accept honour only from the good, 
and will despise dishonour, knowing it to be undeserved. In 
all good or bad fortune, he will behave with moderation ; in 
not highly valuing even the highest thing of all, honour itself, 
he may seem to others supercilious. Wealth and fortune contri- 
bute to high-mindedness ; but most of all, superior goodness ; 



492 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— ARISTOTLE. 

for the character cannot exist without perfect virtue. The 
high-minded man neither shuns nor courts danger ; nor is he 
indisposed to risk even his life. He gives favours, but does 
not accept them ; he is proud to the great, but affable to the 
lowly. He attempts only great and important matters; is 
open in friendship and in hatred ; truthful in conduct, with an 
ironical reserve. He talks little, either of himself or of others ; 
neither desiring his own praise, nor caring to utter blame. 
He wonders at nothing, bears no malice, is no gossip. His 
movements are slow, his voice deep, his diction stately (III.). 

There is a nameless virtue, a mean between the two 
extremes of too much and too little ambition, or desire of 
honour ; the reference being to smaller matters and to ordi- 
nary men. The fact that both extremes are made terms of 
reproach, shows that there is a just mean ; while each extreme 
alternately claims to be the virtue, as against the other, since 
there is no term to express the mean (IV.). 

Mildness (Trpaorrjs) is a mean state with reference to Anger, 
although inclining to the defective side. The exact mean, 
which has no current name, is that state wherein the agent 
is free from perturbation (ar^ax 09 )? is not impelled by pas- 
sion, but guided by reason; is angry when he ought, as 
he ought, with whom, and as long as, he ought: taking 
right measure of all the circumstances. Not to be angry on 
the proper provocation, is folly, insensibility, slavish sub- 
mission. Of those given to excess in anger, some are quick, 
impetuous, and soon appeased; others are sulky, repressing 
and perpetuating their resentment. It is not easy to define 
the exact mean; each case must be left to individual per- 
ception (V.). 

The next virtue is Good-breeding in society, a balance 
between surliness on the one hand, and weak assent or inter- 
ested flattery on the other. It is a nameless virtue, resem- 
bling friendship without the special affection. Aristotle 
shows what he considers the bearing of the finished gentle- 
man, studying to give pleasure, and yet expressing disappro- 
bation when it would be wrong to do otherwise (VI.). 

Closely allied to the foregoing is the observance of a due 
mean, in the matter of Boastfulness. The boastful lay claim 
to what they do not possess ; false modesty (elpwvela) is deny- 
ing or underrating one's own merits. The balance of the 
two is the straightforward and truthful character ; asserting 
just what belongs to him, neither more nor less. This is a 
kind of truthfulness, — distinguished from ' truth' in its more 



JUSTICE — DISTRIBUTIVE AND CORRECTIVE. 493 

serious aspect, as discriminating between justice and injustice 
— and has a worth of its own ; for he that is truthful in little 
things will be so in more important affairs (VII.). 

In the playful intercourse of society, there is room for 
the virtue of Wit, a balance or mean between buffoonish 
excess, and the clownish dulness that can neither make nor 
enjoy a joke. Here the man of refinement must be a law to 
himself (VIII.) . 

Modesty (a^ws) is briefly described, without being put 
through the comparison with its extremes. It is more a 
feeling than a state, or settled habit. It is the fear of ill- 
report ; and has the physical expression of fear under danger 
— the blushing and the pallor. It befits youth as the age of 
passion and of errors. In the old it is no virtue, as they 
should do nothing to be ashamed of (IX.). 

Book Fifth (the first of the so-called Eudemian books), 
treats of Justice, the Social virtue by pre-eminence. Justice 
as a virtue is defined, the state of mind, or moral disposition, 
to do what is just. The question then is — what is the just and 
the unjust in action ? The words seem to have more senses 
than one. The just may be (1) the Lawful, what is estab- 
lished by law ; which includes, therefore, all obedience, and all 
moral virtue (for every kind of conduct came under public 
regulation, in the legislation of Plato and Aristotle). Or (2) 
the just may be restricted to the fair and equitable as regards 
property. In both senses, however, justice concerns our be- 
haviour to some one else : and it thus stands apart from the 
other virtues, as (essentially and in its first character) seeking 
another's good — not the good of the agent himself (I.). 

The first kind of justice, which includes all virtue, called 
Universal Justice, being set aside, the enquiry is reduced to 
the Particular Justice, or Justice proper and distinctive. Of 
this there are two kinds, Distributive and Corrective (II.). 
Distributive Justice is a kind of equality or proportion in the 
distribution of property, honours, &c, in the State, according 
to the merits of each citizen ; the standard of worth or merit 
being settled by the constitution, whether democratic, oli- 
garchic, or aristocratic (III.). Corrective, or Reparative 
Justice takes no account of persons ; but, looking at cases 
where unjust loss or gain has occurred, aims to restore the 
balance, by striking an arithmetical mean (IV.). The Pytha- 
gorean idea, that Justice is Retaliation, is inadequate ; pro- 
portion and other circumstances must be included. Propor- 
tionate Retaliation, or Reciprocity of services, — as in the case 



494 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — AKISTOTLE. 

of Commercial Exchange, measured through the instrument 
of money, with its definite value, — is set forth as the great 
bond of society. Just dealing is the mean between doing 
injustice and suffering injustice (V.). Justice is definitely 
connected with Law, and exists only between citizens of the 
State, and not between father and children, master and slave, 
between whom there is no law proper, but only a sort of rela- 
tion analogous to law (VI. )• Civil Justice is partly Natural, 
partly conventional. The natural is what has the same 
force everywhere, whether accepted or not ; the conventional 
varies with institutions, acquiring all its force from adoption 
by law, and being in itself a matter of indifference prior to 
such adoption. Some persons regard all Justice as thus 
conventional. They say — ' What exists by nature is un- 
changeable, and has everywhere the same power ; for example, 
fire burns alike in Persia and here ; but we see regulations of 
justice often varied — differing here and there.' This, however, 
is not exactly the fact, though to a certain extent it is the 
fact. Among the gods indeed, it perhaps is not the fact at 
all : but among men, it is true that there exists something by 
nature changeable, though every thing is not so. Neverthe- 
less, there are some things existing by nature, other things 
not by nature. And we can plainly see, among those matters 
that admit of opposite arrangement, which of them belong 
to nature and which to law and convention ; and the same 
distinction will fit in other cases also. Thus the right hand 
is by nature more powerful than the left ; yet it is possible 
that all men may become ambidextrous. Those regulations 
of justice that are not by nature, but by human appointment, 
are not the same everywhere ; nor is the political constitution 
everywhere the same ; yet there is one political constitution 
only that is by nature the best everywhere (VII.). 

To constitute Justice and Injustice in acts, the acts must 
be voluntary ; there being degrees of culpability in injustice 
according to the intention, the premeditation, the greater or 
less knowledge of circumstances. The act that a person 
does may perhaps be unjust; but he is not, on that account, 
always to be regarded as an unjust man (VIII.). 

Here a question arises, Can one be injured voluntarily ? It 
seems not, for what a man consents to is not injury. 'Nor can 
a person injure himself. Injury is a relationship between two 
parties (IX.). Equity does not contradict, or set aside, 
Justice, but is a higher and finer kind of justice, coming in 
where the law is too rough and general. 



THE INTELLECTUAL EXCELLENCES OK VIRTUES. 495 

Book Sixth treats of Intellectual Excellences, or Virtues 
of the Intellect. It thus follows out the large definition of 
virtue given at the outset, and repeated in detail as concerns 
each of the ethical or moral virtues successively. 

According to the views most received at present, Morality 
is an affair of conscience and sentiment ; little or nothing is 
said about estimating the full circumstances and consequences 
of each act, except that there is no time to calculate correctly, 
and that the attempt to do so is generally a pretence for evad- 
ing the peremptory order of virtuous sentiment, which, if faith- 
fully obeyed, ensures virtuous action in each particular case. 
If these views be adopted, an investigation of our intellectual 
excellences would find no place in a treatise on Ethics. But 
the theory of Aristotle is altogether different. Though he 
recognizes Emotion and Intellect as inseparably implicated 
in the mind of Ethical agents, yet the sovereign authority 
that he proclaims is not Conscience or Sentiment, but 
Reason. The subordination of Sentiment to Reason is with 
him essential. It is true that .Reason must be supplied 
with First Principles, whence to take its start; and these 
First Principles are here declared to be, fixed emotional states 
or dispositions, engendered in the mind of the agent by a suc- 
cession of similar acts. But even these dispositions them- 
selves, though not belonging to the department of Reason, are 
not exempt from the challenge and scrutiny of Reason ; while 
the proper application of them in act to the complicated 
realities of life,, is the work of Reason altogether. Such an 
ethical theory calls upon Aristotle to indicate, more or less 
fully, those intellectual excellences, whereby alone we are 
enabled to overcome the inherent difficulties of right ethical 
conduct ; and he indicates them in the present Book, compar- 
ing them with those other intellectual excellences which guide 
our theoretical investigations, where conduct is not directly 
concerned. 

In specifying the ethical excellences, or excellences of dis- 
position, we explained that each of them aimed to realize a 
mean — and that this mean was to be determined by Right 
Reason. To find the mean, is thus an operation of the Intel- 
lect ; and we have now to explain what the right performance 
of it is, — or to enter upon the Excellences of the Intellect. 
The soul having been divided into Irrational and Rational, 
the Rational must farther be divided into two parts, — the 
Scientific (dealing with necessary matter), the Calculative, or 
Deliberative (dealing with contingent matter). We must 



496 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — ARISTOTLE. 

touch, upon the excellence or best condition of both of them (I.). 
There are three principal functions of the soul— Sensation, 
Reason, and Appetite or Desire. Now, Sensation (which 
beasts have as well as men) is not a principle of moral action. 
The Reason regards truth and falsehood only; it does not 
move to action, it is not an end in itself. Appetite or Desire, 
which aims at an end, introduces us to moral action. Truth 
and Falsehood, as regards Reason, correspond to Good and Evil 
as regards Appetite : Affirmation and Negation, with the first, 
are the analogues of Pursuit and Avoidance, with the second. 
In purpose, which is the principle of moral action, there is 
included deliberation or calculation. Reason and Appetite are 
thus combined : Good Purpose comprises both true affirmation 
and right pursuit : you may call it either an Intelligent Appe- 
tite, or an Appetitive Intelligence. Such is man, as a principle 

of action (y loiaviy ap-^rj upOpiwro^). 

Science has to do with the necessary and the eternal ; it 
is teachable, but teachable always from prcecognita, or prin- 
ciple?, obtained by induction ; from which principles, conclu- 
sions are demonstrated by syllogism (III.). Art, or Produc- 
tion, is to be carefully distinguished from the action or 
agency that belongs to man as an ethical agent, and that 
does not terminate in any separate assignable product. But 
both the one and the other deal with contingent matters 
only. Art deals for the most part with the same matters 
as are subject to the intervention of Fortune or Chance 

Prudence or Judiciousness (cfrpovyai*, the quality of o 
(ppovijuios'), the Practical Reason, comes next. "We are told 
what are the matters wherewith it is, and wherewith it 
is not, conversant. It does not deal with matters wherein 
there exist art, or with rules of art. It does not deal with 
necessary matters, nor with matters not modifiable by human 
agency. The prudent or judicious man is one who (like 
Pericles) can accurately estimate and foresee matters (apart 
from Science and Art) such as are good or evil for him- 
self and other human beings. On these matters, feelings of 
pleasure or pain are apt to bias the mind, by insinuating 
wrong aims ; which they do not do in regard to the properties 
of a triangle and other scientific conclusions. To guard 
against such bias, the judicious man must be armed with the 
ethical excellence described above as Temperance or Modera- 
tion. Judiciousness is not an Art, admitting of better and 
worse ; there are not good judicious men, and bad judicious 



THE INTELLECTUAL ELEMENT IN MORAL VIRTUE. 497 

men, as there are good and bad artists. Judiciousness is 
itself an excellence (i.e. the term connotes excellence) — 
an excellence of the rational sonl, and of that branch 
of the rational soul which is calculating, deliberative, not 
scientific (V.). Reason or Intellect (yov$) is the faculty 
for apprehending the first principles of demonstrative science. 
It is among the infallible faculties of the mind, together 
with Judiciousness, Science, and Philosophy. Each of 
these terms connotes truth and accuracy (VI.). Wisdom in 
the arts is the privilege of the superlative artists, such as 
Phidias in sculpture. But there are some men wise, not in 
any special art, but absolutely ; and this wisdom (acxfita) is 
Philosophy. It embraces both principles of science (which 
Aristotle considers to come under the review of the First 
Philosophy) and deductions therefrom ; it is vov$ and eV^o-T^jM/ 
in one. It is more venerable and dignified than Prudence or 
Judiciousness ; because its objects, the Kosmos and the celes- 
tial bodies, are far more glorious than man, with whose in- 
terests alone Prudence is concerned ; and also because the 
celestial objects are eternal and unvarying ; while man and 
his affairs are transitory and ever fluctuating. Hence the 
great honour paid to Thales, Anaxagoras, and others, who 
speculated on theories thus magnificent and superhuman, 
though useless in respect to human good. 

We have already said that Prudence or Judiciousness is 
good counsel on human interests, with a view to action. But 
we must also add that it comprises a knowledge not of uni- 
versal merely, but also of particulars ; and experienced men, 
much conversant with particulars, are often better qualified for 
action than inexperienced men of science (VII.). Prudence 
is the same in its intellectual basis as the political science or 
art — yet looked at in a different aspect. Both of them are 
practical and consultative, respecting matters of human good 
and evil ; but prudence, in the stricter sense of the word, con- 
cerns more especially the individual self ; still, the welfare of 
the individual is perhaps inseparable from household and state 
concerns. Prudence farther implies a large experience; whence 
boys, who can become good mathematicians, cannot have prac- 
tical judgment or prudence. In consultation, we are liable to 
error both in regard to universals, and in regard to particulars ; 
it is the business of prudence, as well as of the political science, 
to guard against both. That prudence is not identical with 
Science, is plain enough ; for Science is the intermediate pro- 
cess between the first principles and the last conclusions ; 
32 



498 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — ARISTOTLE. 

whereas prudence consists chiefly in seizing these last, which 
are the applications of reasoning, and represent the particular 
acts to be done. Prudence is the counterpart of Reason (N0S9) 
or Intellect, but at the opposite extremity of the mental pro- 
cess. For Intellect (No£§) apprehends the extreme Univer- 
sals, — the first principles, — themselves not deducible, but from 
which deduction starts ; while Prudence fastens on the ex- 
treme particulars, which are not known by Science, but by 
sensible Perception. "We mean here by sensible Perception, 
not what is peculiar to any of the five senses, but what is 
common to them all — whereby we perceive that the triangle 
before us is a geometrical ultimatum, and that it is the 
final subject of application for all the properties previously 
demonstrated to belong to triangles generally. The mind will 
stop here in the downward march towards practical applica- 
tion, as it stopped at first principles in the upward march. 
Prudence becomes, however, confounded with sensible per- 
ception, when we reach this stage. [The statement here given 
involves Aristotle's distinction of the proper and the common 
Sensibles ; a shadowing out of the muscular element in sensa- 
tion] (VIII.). 

Good counsel (evj3ov\ia) is distinguished from various 
other qualities. It is, in substance, choosing right means 
to a good end ; the end being determined by the great faculty 
— Prudence or Judiciousness (IX.). Sagacity (ovve<n<i) is 
a just intellectual measure in regard to the business of life, 
individual and social ; critical ability in appreciating and in- 
terpreting the phenomena of experience. It is distinguished 
from Prudence in this respect — that Prudence carries infer- 
ences into Practice (X.). Considerateness (^vivjur)) is another 
intellectual virtue, with a practical bearing. It is that virtue 
whereby we discern the proper occasions for indulgent con- 
struction, softening the rigour of logical consistency. It is 
the source of equitable decisions. 

The different intellectual excellences just named — Con- 
siderateness, Sagacity, Prudence (^povrjais), and Intellect 
(No£§), seem all to bear on the same result, and are for the 
most part predicable of the same individuals. All of them 
are concerned with the ultimate applications of principle to 
practice, and with the actual moments for decision and action. 
Indeed, Intellect (Nov?) deals with the extremes at both ends 
of the scale : with the highest and lowest terms. In theoreti- 
cal science, it apprehends and sanctions the major proposi- 
tions, the first and highest principia of demonstrations : in 



THEORY OF PRUDENCE. 499 

practical dealings, it estimates the minor propositions of the 
syllogism, the possibilities of the situation, and the ultimate 
action required. All these are the princvpia from whence 
arises the determining motive : for the universal is always 
derived from particulars ; these we must know through sen- 
sible perception, which is in this case the same thing as intel- 
lect (No£s). Intellect is in fact both the beginning and th<6 
end : it cognizes both the first grounds of demonstration and 
the last applications of the results of demonstration. A man 
cannot acquire science by nature, or without teaching : but 
he may acquire Intellect and Sagacity by nature, simply 
through long life and abundant experience. The affirmations 
and opinions of old men deserve attention, hardly less than 
demonstrations : they have acquired an eye from experience, 
and can thus see the practical principles (though they may 
not be able to lay out their reasons logically) (XL). 

But an objector may ask — Of what use are Philosophy 
and Prudence ? He may take such grounds as these. (1) 
Philosophy has no practical aim at all ; nor does it consider 
the means of happiness ? (2) Prudence, though bearing on 
practice, is merely knowledge, and does not ensure right 
action. (3) Even granting the knowledge to be of value as 
direction, it might be obtained, like medical knowledge, from 
a professional adviser. (4) If philosophy is better than 
prudence, why does prudence control philosophy ? We have 
to answer these doubts. The first is answered by asserting 
the independent value of philosophy and prudence, as perfec- 
tions of our nature, and as sources of happiness in themselves. 
The second and third doubts are set at rest, by afiirming 
prudence to have no existence apart from virtue. Without a 
virtuous aim, there is no such thing as Prudence : there is 
nothing but cleverness degenerating into cunning* ; while 
virtue without virtuous prudence is nothing better than a mere 
instinct, liable to be misguided in every way (XII.). 

There is one more difficulty to be cleared up respecting 
virtue. All our dispositions, and therefore all our ethical 
excellences, come to us in a certain sense by nature ; that is, 
we have from the moment of birth a certain aptitude for 
becoming temperate, courageous, just, &c. But these natural 
aptitudes or possessions (jfivaucal egei?) are something alto- 
gether distinct from the ethical excellences proper, though 
capable of being matured into them, if intellect and prudence 
be superadded. Sokrates was mistaken in resolving all the 
virtues into prudence ; but he was right in saying that none 



500 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— ARISTOTLE. 

of them can exist without prudence. The virtues ought to 
be denned as, not merely ethical dispositions according to right 
reason, but ethical dispositions along with right reason or 
prudence (i.e., prudence is an ever present co-efficient). It 
is thus abundantly evident that none but a prudent man can 
be good, and none but a good man can be prudent. The 
virtues are separable from each other, so far as the natural 
aptitudes are concerned : a man may have greater facility for 
acquiring one than another. But so far as regards the finished 
acquirements of excellence, in virtue of which a man is called 
good — no such separation is possible. All of them alike need 
the companionship of Prudence (XIII.). 

Book Seventh has two Parts. Part first discusses the 
grades of moral strength and moral weakness. Part second 
is a short dissertation on Pleasure, superseded by the superior 
handling of the subject in the Tenth Book. 

With reference to moral power, in self-restraint, six 
grades are specified. (1) God-like virtue, or reason impelling 
as well as directing. (2) The highest human virtue, ex- 
pressed by Temperance ((juxfipoovvr)) — appetite and passion 
perfectly harmonized with reason. (3) Continence (i^Kpareia) 
or the mastery of reason, after a struggle. (4) Incontinence, 
the mastery of appetite or passion, but not without a struggle. 
(5) Vice, reason perverted so as to harmonize entirely with 
appetite or passion. (6) Bestiality, naked appetite or passion, 
without reason. Certain prevalent opinions are enumerated, 
which are to form the subject of the discussions following — 
(1) Continence and endurance are morally good. (2) The 
Continent man sticks to his opinion. (3) The Incontinent 
err knowingly. (4) Temperance and Continence are the 
same. (5) Wise and clever men may be Incontinent. (6) 
Incontinence applies to other things than Pleasure, as anger, 
honour, and gain (I.). 

The third point (the Incontinent sin knowingly) is first 
mooted. Sokrates held the contrary; he made vice and 
ignorance convertible. Others think that the knowledge 
possessed by the incontinent is mere opinion, or a vague and 
weak conviction. It is objected to "No. 4, that continence 
implies evil desires to be controlled ; while temperance 
means the character fully harmonized. As to No. 2, Con- 
tinence must often be bad, if it consists in sticking to an 
opinion (II.). 

The third point, the only question of real interest or diffi- 
culty, is resumed at greater length. The distinction between 



MORAL STRENGTH AND MORAL WEAKNESS. 501 

knowledge and opinion (the higher and the lower kinds of 
knowledge) does not settle the question, for opinion may be 
as strong as knowledge. The real point is, what is meant by 
having knowledge? A man's knowledge may be in abeyance, 
as it is when he is asleep or intoxicated. Thus, we may have 
in the mind two knowledges (like two separate syllogisms), 
one leading to continence, the other to incontinence ; the first 
is not drawn out, like the syllogism wanting a minor ; hence 
it may be said to be not present to the mind ; so that, in a 
certain sense, Sokrates was right in denying that actual and 
present knowledge could be overborne. Vice is a form of 
oblivion (III.). 

The next question is, what is the object-matter of incon- 
tinence; whether there is any man incontinent simply and 
absolutely (without any specification of wherein), or whether 
all incontinent men are so in regard to this or that particular 
matter? (No. 6). The answer is, that it applies directly to 
the bodily appetites and pleasures, which are necessary up to 
a certain point (the sphere of Temperance), and then he that 
commits unreasonable excess above this point is called Incon- 
tinent simply. But if he commits excess in regard to plea- 
sures, which, though not necessary, are natural and, up to a 
certain point, reasonable — such as victory, wealth, honour — • 
we designate him as incontinent, yet with a specification of 
the particular matter (IV). 

The modes of Bestiality, as cannibalism and unnatural 
passion, are ascribed to morbid depravity of nature or of 
habits, analogous to disease or madness (V.). 

Incontinence in anger is not so bad as Incontinence in 
lust, because anger (1) has more semblance of reason, (2) is 
more a matter of constitution, (3) has less of deliberate pur- 
pose — while lust is crafty, (4) arises under pain, and not from 
wantonness (VI.). 

Persons below the average in resisting pleasures are in- 
continent; those below the average in resisting pains are soft 
or effeminate. The mass of men incline to both weaknesses. 
He that deliberately pursues excessive pleasures, or other 
pleasures in an excessive way, is said to be abandoned. The in- 
temperate are worse than the incontinent. Sport, in its excess, 
is effeminacy, as being relaxation from toil. There are two kinds 
of incontinence : the one proceeding from precipitancy, where 
a man acts without deliberating at all ; the other from feeble- 
ness, — where he deliberates, but where the result of deliberation 
is too weak to countervail his appetite (VII.). Intemperance or 



502 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — AEISTOTLE. 

profligacy is more vicious, and less curable than Incontinence, 
The profligate man is one who has in him no principle («/>x ? /) 
of good or of right reason, and who does wrong without after- 
wards repenting of it; the incontinent man has the good 
principle in him, but it is overcome when he does wrong, and 
he afterwards repents (VIII.). Here, again, Aristotle denies 
that sticking to one's opinions is, per se, continence. The 
opinion may be wrong ; in that case, if a man sticks to it, 
prompted by mere self-assertion and love of victory, it is a 
species of incontinence. One of the virtues of the continent 
man is to be open to persuasion, and to desert one's resolu- 
tions for a noble end (IX.). Incontinence is like sleep or 
drunkenness as opposed to wakeful knowledge. The incon- 
tinent man is like a state having good laws, but not acting on 
them. The incontinence of passion is more curable than that 
of weakness ; what proceeds from habit more than what is 
natural (X.). 

The Eighth and Ninth Books contain the treatise on 
Friendship. 

The subject deserves a place in an Ethical treatise, because 
of its connexion with virtue and with happiness. Several 
questions have been debated concerning Friendship, — Is 
it based on likeness or unlikeness ? Can bad men be 
friends ? Is there but one species of Friendship, or more 
than one ? (I.) Some progress towards a solution of these 
questions may be made by considering what are the objects of 
liking ; these are the good, the pleasant, the useful. By the 
good is not meant the absolute good of Plato, but the ap- 
parent good. Inanimate things must be excluded, as wanting 
reciprocation (II.). The varieties of friendship follow these 
three modes of the likeable. The friendships for the useful 
and the pleasant, are not disinterested, but self-seeking ; they 
are therefore accidental and transitory ; they do not involve 
intimate and frequent association. Friendship for the good, 
and between the virtuous, is alone perfect ; it is formed slowly, 
and has the requisites of permanence. It occurs rarely (III.). 
As regards the useful and the pleasant, the bad may be friends. 
It may happen that two persons are mutually pleasant to each 
other, as lover and beloved ; while this lasts, there is friend- 
ship. It is only as respects the good, that there exists a per- 
manent liking for the person. Such friendship is of an abso- 
lute nature ; the others are accidental (IV.). Friendship is in 
full exercise only during actual intercourse ; it may exist 
potentially at a distance ; but in long absence, there is danger 



CONDITIONS OF FRIENDSHIP. 503 

of its being dissolved. Friendship is a settled state or habit, 
while fondness is a mere passion, which does not imply our 
wishing to do good to the object of it, as friendship does (V.). 
The perfect kind of friendship, from its intensity, cannot be 
exercised towards more than a small number. In regard to 
the useful and the pleasant, on the other hand, there may be 
friendship with many ; as the friendship towards tradesmen 
and between the young. The happy desire pleasant friends. 
Men in power have two classes of friends ; one for the useful, 
the other for the pleasant. Both qualities are found in the 
good man ; but he will not be the friend of a superior, unless 
he be surpassed (by that superior) in virtue also. In all the 
kinds of friendship now specified there is equality (VI.). There 
are friendships where one party is superior, as father and son, 
older and younger, husband and wife, governor and governed. 
In such cases there should be a proportionably greater love 
on the part of the inferior. When the love on each side is 
proportioned to the merit of the party beloved, then we have 
a certain species of equality, which is an ingredient in friend- 
ship. But equality in matters of friendship, is not quite the 
same as equality in matters of justice. In matters of 
justice, equality proportioned to merit stands first — equality 
between man and man (no account being taken of comparative 
merit) stands only second. In friendship, the case is the re- 
verse ; the perfection of friendship is equal love between the 
friends towards each other ; to have greater love on one side, 
by reason of and proportioned to superior merit, is friendship 
only of the second grade. This will be evident if we reflect 
that extreme inequality renders friendship impossible — as be- 
tween private men and kings or gods. Hence the friend can 
scarcely wish for his friend the maximum of good, to become 
a god ; such extreme elevation would terminate the friend- 
ship. Nor will he wish his friend to possess all the good ; 
for every one wishes most for good to self (VII.). The essence 
of friendship is to love rather than to be loved, as seen in 
mothers ; but the generality of persons desire rather to be 
loved, which is akin to being honoured (although honour is 
partly sought as a sign of future favours). By means of love, 
as already said, unequal friendships may be equalized. Friend- 
ship with the good, is based on equality and similarity, neither 
party ever desiring base services. Friendships for the useful 
are based on the contrariety of fulness and defect, as poor and 
rich, ignorant and knowing (VII I.). Friendship is an inci- 
dent of political society ; men associating together for common 



504 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— ARISTOTLE. 

ends, become friends. Political justice becomes more binding 
when men are related by friendship. The state itself is a com- 
munity for the sake of advantage ; the expedient to all is the 
just. In the large society of the state, there are many inferior 
societies for business, and for pleasure : friendship starts up 
in all (IX.). There are three forms of Civil Government, 
with a characteristic declension or perversion of each : — 
Monarchy passing into Despotism ; Aristocracy into Oli- 
garchy ; Timocracy (based on wealth) into Democracy ; parent 
and child typifies the first ; husband and wife the second ; 
brothers the third (X.). The monarchial or paternal type 
has superiority on one side, and demands honour as well as 
love on the other. In aristocracy, the relation is one of merit, 
and the greater love is given to the better. In timocracy, and 
among brothers, there is equality ; and hence the most fre- 
quent friendships. There is no friendship towards a slave, as 
a slave, for, as such he is a mere animate tool (XL). In the 
relations of the family, friendship varies with the different 
situations, Parents love their children as a part of themselves, 
and from the first; children grow to love their parents. Brothers 
are affected by their community of origin, as well as by common 
education and habits of intimacy. Husband and wife come 
together by a natural bond, and as mutual helps ; their friend- 
ship contains the useful and the pleasant, and, with virtue, the 
good. Their offspring strengthens the bond (XII. ). The 
friendships that give rise to complaints are confined to the 
Useful. Such friendships involve a legal element of strict and 
measured reciprocity [mere trade], and a moral or unwritten 
understanding, which is properly friendship. Each party is 
apt to give less and expect more than he gets ; and the rule 
must be for each to reciprocate liberally and fully, in such 
manner and kind as they are able (XIII.) . In unequal friend- 
ships, between a superior and inferior, the inferior has the 
greater share of material assistance, the superior should re- 
ceive the greater honour (XIV.). 

Book Ninth proceeds without any real break. It may not 
be always easy to fix the return to be made for services re- 
ceived. Protagoras, the sophist, left it to his pupils to settle the 
amount of fee that he should receive. When there is no agree- 
ment, we must render what is in our power, for example, to the 
gods and to our parents (I.). Cases may arise of conflicting 
obligation ; as, shall we prefer a friend to a deserving man ? 
shall a person robbed reciprocate to robbers ? and others. [We 
have here the germs of Casuistry.] (II.) As to the termina- 



VARIETIES OF FRIENDSHIP. 505 

tion of Friendship ; in the case of the useful and the pleasant, 
the connexion ceases with the motives. In the case of the good, 
it may happen that one party counterfeits the good, but is really 
acting the useful or the pleasant ; or one party may turn out 
wicked, and the only question is, how far hopes of his improve- 
ment shall be entertained. Again, one may continue the same, 
while the other makes large advances in mental training; 
how far shall present disparity operate against old associations ? 
(III.). There is a sort of illustrative parallelism between the 
feelings and acts of friendship, and the feelings and acts of 
self-love, or of a good man to himself. The virtuous man 
wishes what is good for himself, especially for his highest part 
— the intellect or thinking part ; he desires to pass his life in 
the company of his own thoughts ; he sympathizes with his 
own sorrows. On the other hand, the bad choose the pleasant, 
although it be hurtful ; they fly from themselves ; their own 
thoughts are unpleasant companions ; they are full of repent- 
ance (IV.). Good- will is different from friendship ; it is a 
sudden impulse of feeling towards some distinguished or like- 
able quality, as in an antagonist. It has not the test of longing 
in absence. It may be the prelude to friendship (V.). 
Unanimity, or agreement of opinion, is a part of friendship. 
Not as regards mere speculation, as about the heavenly bodies; 
but in practical matters, where interests are at stake, such as 
the politics of the day. This unanimity cannot occur in the 
bad, from their selfish and grasping disposition (VI. ). 

The position is next examined — that the love felt by 
benefactors is stronger than the love felt by those bene- 
fitted. It is not a sufficient explanation to say, the bene- 
factor is a creditor, who wishes the prosperity of his debtor. 
Benefactors are like workmen, who love their own work, 
and the exercise of their own powers. They also have the 
feeling of nobleness on their side ; while the recipient has 
the less lovable idea of profit. Finally, activity is more 
akin to love than recipiency (VII.). Another question raised 
for discussion is — ' Ought a man to love himself most, 
or another ? ' On the one hand, selfishness is usually con- 
demned as the feature of bad men ; on the other hand, the 
feelings towards self are made the standard of the feelings 
towards friends. The solution is given thus. There is a 
lower self (predominant with most men) that gratifies the 
appetites, seeking wealth, power, &c. With the select few, 
there is a higher self that seeks the honourable, the noble, in- 
tellectual excellence, at any cost of pleasure, wealth, honour, 



506 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— ARISTOTLE. 

&c. These noble-minded men procnre for themselves the 
greater good by sacrificing the less : and their self-sacrifice is 
thns a mode of self. It is the duty of the good man to love 
himself: for his noble life is profitable, both to himself, and 
to others ; but the bad man ought not to love himself. 
[Self-sacrifice, formerly brought under Courage, is here 
depicted from another point of view] (VIII.). 

By way of bringing out the advantages of friendship, it is 
next asked, Does the happy man need friends ? To this, it is 
answered, (1) That happiness, being the sum of all human good, 
must suppose the possession of the greatest of external goods, 
which is friendship. (2) The happy man will require friends 
as recipients of his overflow of kindness. (3) He cannot be 
expected either to be solitary, or to live with strangers. (4) 
The highest play of existence is to see the acts of another in 
harmony with self. (5) Sympathy supports and prolongs the 
glow of one's own emotions. (6) A friend confirms us in the 
practice of virtue. (7) The sense of existence in ourselves is 
enlarged by the consciousness of another's existence (IX.). 
The number of friends is again considered, and the same 
barriers stated — the impossibility of sharing among many the 
highest kind of affection, or of keeping up close and har- 
monious intimacy. The most renowned friendships are be- 
tween pairs (X.). As to whether friends are most needed in 
adversity or in prosperity — in the one, friendship is more ne- 
cessary, in the other more glorious (XL). The essential 
support and manifestation of friendship is Intercourse. What- 
ever people's tastes are, they desire the society of others in 
exercising them (XII.) . 

Book Tenth discusses Pleasure, and lays down as the 
highest and perfect pleasure, the exercise of the Intellect in 
Philosophy. 

Pleasure is deserving of consideration, from its close inti- 
macy with the constitution of our race ; on which account, in 
our training of youth, we steer them by pleasure and pain ; 
and it is of the first importance that they should feel pleasure 
in what they ought, and displeasure in what they ought, as 
the groundwork (or princijoium) of good ethical dispositions. 
Such a topic can never be left unnoticed, especially when we 
look at the great difference of opinion thereupon. Some 
affirm pleasure to be the chief good [Eudoxus]. Others call it 
altogether vile and worthless [party of Speusippus]. Of these 
last, some perhaps really think so ; but the rest are actuated 
by the necessity of checking men's too great proneness to it, 



THEORIES OF PLEASURE. 507 

and disparage it on that account. This policy Aristotle 
strongly censures, and contends for the superior efficacy of 
truth (I.). 

The arguments urged by Eudoxus as proving pleasure 
to be the chief good, are, (1) That all beings seek pleasure; 
(2) and avoid its opposite, pain ; (3) that they seek pleasure 
as an end-in-itself, and not as a means to any farther end ; 
(4) that pleasure, added to any other good, such as jus- 
tice or temperance, increases the amount of good ; which 
could not be the case, unless pleasure were itself good. Yet 
this last argument (Aristotle urges) proves pleasure to be a 
good, but not to be the Good ; indeed, Plato urged the same 
argument, to show that pleasure could not be The Good : since 
The Good (the Chief Good) must be something that does not 
admit of being enhanced or made more good. The objection of 
Speusippus, — that irrational creatures are not to be admitted 
as witnesses, — Aristotle disallows, seeing that rational and 
irrational agree on the point ; and the thing that seems to all, 
must be true. Another objection, That the opposite of pain 
is not pleasure, but a neutral state — is set aside as contradicted 
by the fact of human desire and aversion, the two opposite 
states of feeling (II.) • 

The arguments of the Platonists, to prove that pleasure 
is not good, are next examined. (1) Pleasure, they say, is 
not a quality ; but neither (replies Aristotle) are the exercises 
or actual manifestations of virtue or happiness. (2) Plea- 
sure is not definite, bat unlimited, or admitting of degrees, 
while The Good is a something definite, and does not admit 
of degrees. But if these reasoners speak about the pure plea- 
sures, they might take objection on similar grounds against 
virtue and justice also ; for these too admit of degrees, and 
one man is more virtuous than another. And if they speak 
of the mixed pleasures (alloyed with pain), their reasoning 
will not apply to the unmixed. Good health is acknowledged 
to be a good, and to be a definite something ; yet there are 
nevertheless some men more healthy, some less. (3) The 
Good is perfect or complete ; but objectors urge that no motion 
or generation is complete, and pleasure is in one of these two 
categories. This last assertion Aristotle denies. Pleasure is 
not a motion ; for the attribute of velocity, greater or less, 
which is essential to all motion, does not attach to pleasure. 
A man may be quick in becoming pleased, or in becoming 
angry ; but in the act of being pleased or angry, he can neither 
be quick nor slow. Nor is it true that pleasure is a genera- 



508 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — ARISTOTLE. 

tion. In all generation, there is something assignable out of 
which generation takes place (not any one thing out of any 
other), and into which it reverts by destruction. If pleasure 
be a generation, pain must be the destruction of what is 
generated ; but this is not correct, for pain does not re-establish 
the state antecedent to the pleasure. Accordingly, it is not 
true that pleasure is a generation. Some talk of pain as a 
want of something required by nature, and of pleasure as a 
filling up of that want. But these are corporeal, not mental 
facts, and are applicable only to eating and drinking ; not 
applicable to many other pleasures, such as those of sight, 
hearing, or learning. (4) There are some disgraceful plea* 
sures. Aristotle replies that these are not absolutely and pro- 
perly pleasures, but only to the depraved man ; just as things 
are not yellow, which appear so to men in a jaundice. Pleasures 
differ from each other in species : there are good pleasures 7 , 
i.e., those arising from good sources;- and bad pleasures,. 
i.e., from bad sources. The pleasure per se is always desir- 
able ; but not when it comes from objectionable acts. The 
pleasures of each man will vary according to his character ; 
none but a musical man can enjoy the pleasures of music; 
No one would consent to remain a child for life, even though 
he were to have his fill of childish pleasure. 

Aristotle sums up the result thus. Pleasure is not The 
Good. Not every mode of pleasure is to be chosen.. Some 
pleasures, distinguished from the rest specifically or according 
to their sources, are to be chosen per se (III.). 

He then attempts to define pleasure. It is something per- 
fect and complete in itself, at each successive moment of time ; 
hence it is not motion, which is at every moment incomplete. 
Pleasure is like the act of vision, or a point, or a monad, 
always complete in itself. It accompanies every variety of 
sensible perception, intelligence, and theorizing contemplation. 
In each of these faculties, the act is more perfect, according 
as the subjective element is most perfect, and the object most 
grand and dignified. When the act is most perfect, the plea- 
sure accompanying it is also the most perfect ; and this plea- 
sure puts the finishing consummation to the act. The pleasure 
is not a pre-existing acquirement now brought into exercise, 
but an accessory end implicated with the act, like the fresh 
look which belongs to the organism just matured. It is a sure 
adjunct, so long as subject and object are in good condition. 
But continuity of pleasure, as well as of the other exercises, 
is impossible. Life is itself an exercise much diversified, and 



PLEASURES OF THE INTELLECT THE REAL PLEASURES. 509 

each man follows the diversity that is suitable to his own 
inclination — music, study, &c. Each has its accessory and 
consummating mode of pleasure ; and to say that all men 
desire pleasure, is the same as saying that all men desire life. 
It is no real question to ask — Do we choose life for the sake 
of pleasure, or pleasure for the sake of life ? The truth is, 
that the two are implicated and inseparable (IV.). 

As our acts or exercises differ from each other specifically, 
so also the pleasures that are accessory to them differ speci- 
fically. Exercises intellectual differ from exercises perceptive, 
and under each head there are varieties differing from each 
other. The pleasures accessory and consummating to each, 
are diversified accordingly. Each pleasure contributes to 
invigorate and intensify the particular exercise that it is at- 
tached to ; the geometer who studies his science with pleasure 
becomes more acute and successful in prosecuting it. On the 
other hand, the pleasures attached to one exercise impede the 
mind in regard to other exercises ; thus men fond of the flute 
cannot listen to a speaker with attention, if any one is playing 
the flute near them. What we delight in doing, we are more 
likely to do well ; what we feel pain in doing, we are not 
likely to do well. And thus each variety of exercise is alike 
impeded by the pains attached to itself, and by the pleasures 
attached to other varieties. 

Among these exercises or acts, some are morally good, 
others morally bad ; the desires of the good are also praise- 
worthy, the desires of the bad are blameable ; but if so, much 
more are the pleasures attached to the good exercises, good 
pleasures — and the pleasures attached to the bad exercises, 
bad pleasures. For the pleasures attached to an exercise are 
more intimately identified with that exercise than the desire 
of it can be. The pleasure of the exercise, and the exercise 
itself, are indeed so closely identified one with the other, that to 
many they appear the same. Sight, hearing, and smell, differ 
in purity from touch and taste ; and the pleasures attached to 
each differ in like manner. The pleasures of intellect differ 
from those of sense, as these two exercises differ from one 
another. Every animal has its own peculiar pleasures, as it 
has also its own peculiar manifestation and exercises. Among 
the human race, the same things give pleasure to one indi- 
vidual and pain to another. The things thab appear sweet 
to the strong and healthy man, do not appear sweet to one 
suffering from fever, or weakly. Now, amidst this discrep- 
ancy, what appears to the virtuous and intelligent man, really 



510 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — ARISTOTLE. 

& His pleasures are the true and real pleasures. Excellence, 
and the good man qudtenus good, are to be taken as the 
standard. If what he abhors appears pleasurable to some 
persons, we must not be surprised, since there are many de- 
pravations of individuals, in one way or another ; but these 
things are not pleasures really, they are only pleasures to 
these depraved mortals (V.). 

So far the theory of Pleasure. Aristotle now goes back 
to his starting point — the nature of the Good, and Happiness. 
He re- states his positions : That Happiness is an exercise or 
actuality (ivep^eia)* and not an acquirement or state (ef*?) ; 
That it belongs to such exercises as are worthy of choice 
for their own sake, and not to such as are worthy of choice 
for the sake of something else ; That it is perfect and self- 
sufficing, seeking nothing beyond itself, and leaving no 
wants unsupplied. Hence he had concluded that it consisted 
in acting according to virtue ; for the honourable and good 
are chosen for their own sake. But amusements are also 
sought for their own sake ; Are these also to be called happi- 
ness ? JSTo. It is true that they are much pursued by 
those whom the vulgar envy — men of wealth and despots — 
who patronize and reward the practitioners of amusement. 
But this proves nothing, for we cannot adopt the choice of 
these despots, who have little virtue or intellect, and have 
never known the taste of refined and liberal pleasure. Child- 
ren and mature men, bad men and virtuous, have each their 
different pleasures ; the virtuous and intelligent man finds a life 
of excellence and the pleasures attached thereunto most worthy 
of his choice, and such a man (Aristotle has declared more 
than once) is our standard. It would indeed be childish to 
treat amusements as tlie main end of life ; they are the relax- 
ation of the virtuous man, who derives from them fresh vigour 
for the prosecution of the serious business of life, which he 
cannot prosecute continuously. The serious exercises of life 
are better than the comic, because they proceed from the 
better part of man. The slave may enjoy bodily pleasures to 
the full, but a slave is not called happy (VI.). 

We have thus shown that Happiness consists in exercise 
or actual living according to excellence ; naturally, therefore, 
according to the highest excellence, or the excellence of the 
best part of man. This best part is the Intellect (No£?), our 
most divine and commanding element ; in its exercise, which 
is theoretical or speculative, having respect to matters honour- 
able, divine, and most worthy of study. Such philosophical 



THE LIFE OF PHILOSOPHY. 511 

exercise, besides being the highest function of our nature, is 
at the same time more susceptible than any mode of active 
effort, of being prosecuted for a long continuance. It affords 
the purest and most lasting pleasure ; it approaches most nearly 
to being self-sufficing, since it postulates little more than the 
necessaries of life, and is even independent of society, though 
better with society. Perfect happiness would thus be the 
exercise of the theorizing intellect, continued through a full 
period of life. But this is more than we can expect. Still, 
we ought to make every effort to live according to this best 
element of our nature ; for, though small in bulk, it stands 
exalted above the rest in power and dignity, and, being the 
sovereign element in man, is really The Man himself (VII.). 

Next, yet only second, come the other branches of excel- 
lence : the active social life of a good citizen. Exercises accord- 
ing to this branch of virtue are the natural business of man, for 
it is bound up with our whole nature, including body as well as 
mind, our appetites, and our passions, whereas the happiness 
of intellect is separate. Active social virtue postulates con- 
ditions of society and external aids in considerable measure ; 
but the life of intellect requires only the minimum of these, 
and is even impeded by much of them. 

That perfect happiness is to be found in the philosophical 
life only, will appear farther when we recollect that the gods 
are blest and happy in the highest degree, and that this is 
the only mode of life suitable to them. With the gods there 
can be no scope for active social virtues ; for in what way can 
they be just, courageous, or temperate ? Neither virtuous 
practice nor constructive art can be predicated of the gods ; 
what then remains, since we all assume them to live, and 
therefore to be in act or exercise of some kind ; for no one 
believes them to live in a state of sleep, like Endymion. 
There remains nothing except philosophical contemplation. 
This, then, must be the life of the gods, the most blest of all ; 
and that mode of human life which approaches nearest to it 
will be the happiest. No other animal can take part in this, 
and therefore none can be happy. In so far as the gods pay 
attention to human affairs, they are likely to take pleasure 
in the philosopher, who is most allied to themselves. A 
moderate supply of good health, food, and social position, 
must undoubtedly be ensured to the philosopher ; for, without 
these, human nature will not suffice for the business of con- 
templation. But he will demand nothing more than a moderate 
supply, and when thus equipped, he will approach nearer to 



512 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— AKISTOTLE. 

happiness than any one else. Aristotle declares this confi- 
dently, citing Solon, Anaxagoras, and other sages, as haying- 
said much the same before him (VIII.) . 

In the concluding chapter, Aristotle gives the transition 
from Ethics to Politics. Treatises on virtue may inspire a few 
liberal minds ; but, for the mass of men, laws, institutions, 
and education are necessary. The young ought to be trained, 
not merely by paternal guidance directing in the earliest 
years their love and hatred, but also by a scheme of public 
education, prescribed and enforced by authority throughout 
the city. Right conduct will thus be rendered easier by 
habit ; but still, throughout life, the mature citizen must con- 
tinue under the discipline of law, which has force adequate to 
correction, and, being impersonal, does not excite aversion and 
hatred. Hence the need for a system of good public training. 
Nowhere is this now established and enforced ; hardly any- 
where, except in Sparta, is it even attempted. Amid such 
public neglect, it becomes the duty of an individual to con- 
tribute what he can to the improvement of those that he is 
concerned in, and for that purpose to acquire the capacities 
qualifying him for becoming a lawgiver. Private admonition 
will compensate to a certain extent for the neglect of public 
interference, and in particular cases may be even more dis- 
criminating. But how are such, capacities to be acquired? 
Not from the Sophists, whose method is too empirical ; nor 
from practical politicians, for they seem to have no power of 
imparting their skill. Perhaps it would be useful to make a 
collection of existing laws and constitutions. Aristotle con- 
cludes with sketching the plan of his own work on Politics. 

The Aristotelian doctrines are generally summed up in 
such points as these : — The theory of Good ; Pleasure ; the 
theory of Virtue ; the doctrine of the Will, distinguishing 
voluntary from involuntary ; Virtue a Habit ; the doctrine 
of the Mean ; the distinction between the Moral Virtues and 
the Intellectual Virtues ; Justice, distributive and commuta- 
tive ; Friendship ; the Contemplative Life. 

The following are the indications of his views, according 
bo the six leading subjects of Ethics. 

I. and II. — It is characteristic of Aristotle (as is fully 
stated in Appendix B.) to make the judgment of the wisest 
and most cultivated minds, the standard of appeal in moral 
questions. He lays down certain general principles, such as 
the doctrine of the Mean, but in the application of these 



THE STOICAL SUCCESSION. 513 

(which is everything), he trusts to the most experienced and 
skilled advisers that the community can furnish. 

III.— On the theory of Happiness, or the Summum Bonum, 
it is needless to repeat the abstract of the tenth book. 

IV. — In laying down the Moral Code, he was encumbered 
with the too wide view of Virtue ; but made an advance in 
distinguishing virtue proper from excellence in general. 

V. — He made Society tutelary to the individual in an 
excessive degree. He had no clear conception of the province 
of authority or law ; and did not separate the morality of 
obligation from the morality of reward and nobleness. 

VI. — His exclusion of Theology from morality was total. 

THE STOICS. 

The Stoics were one of the four sects of philosophy, recog- 
nized and conspicuous at Athens during the three centuries 
preceding the Christian era, and during the century or more 
following. Among these four sects, the most marked anti- 
thesis of ethical dogma was between the Stoics and the Epi- 
cureans. The Stoical system dates from about 300 B.C. ; it 
was derived from the system of the Cynics. 

The founder of the system was Zeno, from Citium in 
Cyprus (he lived from 340 — 260 B.C.), who derived his first 
impulse from Krates the Cynic. He opened his school in a 
building or porch, called the Stoa Poecile (' Painted Portico ') 
at Athens, whence the origin of the name of the sect. Zeno 
had for his disciple Cleanthes, from Assos in the Troad (300 
— 220 B.C.), whose Hymn to Jupiter is the only fragment oi 
any length that has come down to us from the early Stoics, 
and is a remarkable production, setting forth, the unity of God, 
his omnipotence, and his moral government. Chkysippus, 
from Soli in Cilicia (290 — 207 B.C.), followed Cleanthes, and, 
in his voluminous writings, both defended and modified the 
Stoical creed. These three represent the first period of the 
system. The second period (200 — 50 B.C.) embraces its 
general promulgation, and its introduction to the Romans. 
Chrysippus was succeeded by Zeno of Sidon, and Diogenes 
of Babylon ; then followed Antipater of Tarsus, who taught 
Panotitis of Rhodes (d. 112 B.C.), who, again, taught Posidonius 
of Apamea, in Syria. (Two philosophers are mentioned 
from the native province of St. Paul, besides Chrysippus 
— Athenodorus, from Cana in Cilicia ; and Archedemus, 
from Tarsus, the apostle's birthplace. It is remarked by Sir 
A. Grant, that almost all the first Stoics were of Asiatic birth ; 
33 



514 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— THE STOICS. 

and the system itself is undeniably more akin to the oriental 
mind than to the Greek.) Posidonius was acquainted with 
Marius and Pompey, and gave lessons to Cicero, but the moral 
treatise of Cicero, De Officiis, is derived from a work of Pansetius. 
The third period of Stoicism is Roman. In this period, we have 
Cato the Younger, who invited to his house the philosopher 
Athenodorus ; and, under the Empire, the three Stoic philo- 
sophers, whose writings have come down to us — Seneca (6 B.C. 
— 65 a.d.), Epictetus (60 — 140 a.d.), who began life as a 
slave, and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 — 
180 a.d.). Stoicism prevailed widely in the Roman world, 
although not to the exclusion of Epicurean views. 

The leading Stoical doctrines are given in certain phrases 
or expressions, as ' Life according to Nature ' (although this 
phrase belongs also to the Epicureans), the ideal ' Wise Man,' 
' Apathy,' or equanimity of mind (also an Epicurean ideal), 
the power of the ' Will,' the worship of l Duty,' the constant 
' Advance ' in virtue, &c. But perspicuity will be best gained 
by considering the Moral system under four heads — the Theo- 
logy ; the Psychology or theory of mind ; the theory of the 
Good or human happiness ; and the scheme of Virtue or Duty. 

I. — The Theological doctrines of the Stoics comprehended 
their system of the Universe, and of man's position in it. They 
held that the Universe is governed by one good and wise God, 
together with inferior or subordinate deities. God exercises 
a moral government ; under it the good are happy, while mis- 
fortunes happen to the wicked. According to Epictetus, God 
is the father of men ; Antoninus exults in the beautiful arrange- 
ment of all things. The earlier Stoics, Zeno and Chrysippus, 
entertained high reverence for the divination, prophecy, and 
omens that were generally current in the ancient world. 
They considered that these were the methods whereby the 
gods were graciously pleased to make known beforehand 
revelations of their foreordained purposes. (Herein lay one 
among the marked points of contrast between Stoics and 
Epicureans.) They held this foreordination even to the length 
of fatalism, and made the same replies, as have been given in 
modern times, to the difficulty of reconciling it with the exis- 
tence of evil, and with the apparent condition of the better and 
the worse individuals among mankind. They offered explana- 
tions such as the following : (1) God is the author of all things 
except wickedness ; (2) the very nature of good supposes its con- 
trast evil, and the two are inseparable, like light and dark, 
(which may be called the argument from Relativity) ; (3) in the 



STOICAL THEOLOGY. 515 

enormous extent of the Universe, some things must be 
neglected ; (4) when evil happens to the good, it is not as a 
punishment, but as connected with a different dispensation ; 

(5) parts of the world may be presided over by evil demons ; 

(6) what we call evil may not be evil. 

Like most other ancient schools, the Stoics held God to be 
corporeal like man : — Body is the only substance ; nothing 
incorporeal could act on what is corporeal ; the First Cause 
of all, God or Zeus, is the primeval fire, emanating from which 
is the soul of man in the form of a warm ether. 

It is for human beings to recognize the Universe as go- 
verned by universal Law, and not only to raise their minds 
to the comprehension of it, but to enter into the views of the 
administering Zeus or Fate, who must regard all interests 
equally ; we are to be, as it were, in harmony with him, to 
merge self in universal Order, to think only of that and its 
welfare. As two is greater than one, the interests of the 
whole world are infinitely greater than the interests of any 
single being, and no one should be satisfied with a regard to 
anything less than the whole. By this elevation of view, we 
are necessarily raised far above the consideration of the petty 
events befalling ourselves. The grand effort of human reason 
is thus to rise to the abstraction or totality of entire Nature ; 
6 no ethical subject/ says Ohrysippus, 'could be rightly ap- 
proached except from the pre- consideration of entire Nature, 
and the ordering of the whole/ 

As to Immortality, the Stoics precluded themselves, by hold- 
ing the theory of the absorption of the individual soul at death 
into the divine essence ; but, on the ether hand, their doctrine 
of advance and aspiration is what has in all times been the main 
natural argument for the immortality of the soul. For the 
most part, they kept themselves undecided as to this doctrine, 
giving it as an alternative, reasoning as to our conduct on 
either supposition, and submitting to the pleasure of God in 
this as in all other things. 

In arguing for the existence of Divine power and govern- 
ment, they employed what has been called the argument from 
Design, which is as old as Sokrates. Man is conscious that 
he is in himself an intellectual or spiritual power, from which, 
by analogy, he is led to believe that a greater power pervades 
the universe, as intellect pervades the human system. 

II. — In the Psychology of the Stoics, two questions are of 
interest, their theory of Pleasure and Pain, and their views 
upon the Freedom of the Will. 



516 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— THE STOICS. 

1. The theory of Pleasure and Pain. The Stoics agreed 
with the Peripatetics (anterior to Epicurus, not specially 
against him) that the first principle of nature is (not pleasure 
or relief from pain, but) self-preservation or self-love ; in other 
words, the natural appetite or tendency of all creatures is, to 
preserve their existing condition with its inherent capacities, 
and to keep clear of destruction or disablement. This appetite 
(they said) manifests itself in little children before any plea- 
sure or pain is felt, and is moreover a fundamental postu- 
late, pre-supposed in all desires of particular pleasures, as well 
as in all aversions to particular pains. We begin by loving 
our own vitality; and we come, by association, to love 
what promotes or strengthens our vitality ; we hate destruction 
or disablement, and come (by secondary association) to hate 
whatever produces that effect.* 

The doctrine here laid down associated, and brought under 
one view, what was common to man, not merely with the 
animal, but also with the vegetable world ; a plant was de- 
clared to have an impulse or tendency to maintain itself, 
even without feeling pain or pleasure. Aristotle (in the tenth 
Book of the Ethics) says, that he will not determine whether 
we love life for the sake of pleasure, or pleasure for the 
sake of life ; for he affirms the two to be essentially yoked 
together and inseparable; pleasure is the consummation of 
our vital manifestations. The Peripatetics, after him, put 
pleasure down to a lower level, as derivative and accidental ; 
the Stoics went farther in the same direction — possibly from 
antithesis against the growing school of Epicurus. 

The primary officium (in a larger sense than our word 
Duty) of man is (they said) to keep himself in the state of 
nature ; the second or derivative officium is to keep to such 
things as are according to nature, and to avert those that are 
contrary to nature; our gradually increasing experience enabled 
us to discriminate the two. The youth learns, as he grows 
up, to value bodily accomplishments, mental cognitions and 
judgments, good conduct towards those around him,— as power- 
ful aids towards keeping up the state of nature. When his 
experience is so far enlarged as to make him aware of the 
order and harmony of nature and human society, and to 
impress upon him the comprehension of this great ideal, his 
emotions as well as his reason become absorbed by it. He 



* There is some analogy between the above doctrine and the great law 
of Self- conservation, as expounded in this volume (p. 75). 



STOICAL PSYCHOLOGY. 517 

recognizes this as the only true Bonum or Honestum, to which 
all other desirable things are referable, — as the only thing 
desirable for itself and in its own nature. He drops or dis- 
misses all those 'prima naturae that he had begun by desiring. 
He no longer considers any of them as worthy of being desired 
in itself, or for its own sake. 

While therefore (according to Peripatetics as well as 
Stoics) the love of self and of preserving one's own vitality 
and activity, is the primary element, intuitive and connate, 
to which all rational preference (officium) was at first referred, 
—-they thought it not the less true, that in process of time, by 
experience, association, and reflection, there grows up in the 
mind a grand acquired sentiment or notion, a new and later 
light, which extinguishes and puts out of sight the early 
beginning. It was important to distinguish the feeble and 
obscure elements from the powerful and brilliant aftergrowth ; 
which indeed was fully realized only in chosen minds, and in 
them, hardly before old age. This idea, when once formed in 
the mind, was The Good — the only thing worthy of desire for 
its own sake. The Stoics called it the only Good, being suffi- 
cient in itself for happiness ; other things being not good, nor 
necessary to happiness, but simply preferable or advantageous 
when they could be had : the Peripatetics recognized it as the 
first and greatest good, but said also that it was not sufficient 
in itself; there were two other inferior varieties of good, of 
which something must be had as complementary (what the 
Stoics called prceposita or sumenda). Thus the Stoics said, 
about the origin of the Idea of Bonum or Honestum, much 
the same as what Aristotle says about ethical virtue. It is not 
implanted in us by nature ; but we have at birth certain initial 
tendencies and capacities, which, if aided by association and 
training, enable us (and that not in all cases) to acquire it. 

2. The Freedom of the Will. A distinction was taken by 
Epictetus and other Stoics between things in our power and 
things not in our power. The things in our power are our 
opinions and notions about objects, and all our affections, de- 
sires, and aversions ; the things not in our power are our 
bodies, wealth, honour, rank, authority, &c, and their oppo- 
sites. The practical application is this : wealth and high rank 
may not be in our power, but we have the power to form an 
idea of these — namely, that they are unimportant, whence 
the want of them will not grieve us. A still more pointed 
application is to death, whose force is entirely in the idea. 

With this distinction between things in our power and 



518 ETHICAL SYSTEMS—THE STOICS. 

things not in our power, we may connect the arguments 
between the Stoics and their opponents as to what is 
now called the Freedom of the Will. But we must first 
begin by distinguishing the two questions. By things in 
our power, the Stoics meant, things that we could do or 
acquire, if we willed : by things not in our power, they 
meant, things that we could not do or acquire if we 
willed. In both cases, the volition was assumed as a fact : 
the question, what determined it — or whether it was non- 
determined, i.e. self- determining — was not raised in the above- 
mentioned antithesis. But it was raised in other discussions 
between the Stoic theorist Chrysippus, and various opponents. 
These opponents denied that volition was determined by 
motives, and cited the cases of equal conflicting motives 
(what is known as the ass of Buridan) as proving that the 
soul includes in itself, and exerts, a special supervenient 
power of deciding action in one way or the other : a power 
not determined by any causal antecedent, but self- originating, 
and belonging to the class of agency that Aristotle recog- 
nizes under the denomination of automatic, spontaneous (or 
essentially irregular and unpredictable). Chrysippus replied 
by denying not only the reality of this supervenient force said 
to be inherent in the soul, but also the realitv of all that 
Aristotle called automatic or spontaneous agency generally. 
Chrysippus said that every movement was determined by 
antecedent motives ; that in cases of equal conflict, the 
exact equality did not long continue, because some new but 
slight motive slipped in unperceived and turned the scale on 
one side or the other. (See Plutarch De Stoicorum Repug- 
nantiis, c. 23, p. 1045.) Here, we see, the question now 
known as the Freedom of the Will is discussed : and 
Chrysippus declares against it, affirming that volition is 
always determined by motives. 

But we also see that, while declaring this opinion, 
Chrysippus does not employ the terms Necessity or Freedom 
of the Will : neither did his opponents, so far as we can see : 
they had a different and less misleading phrase. By Freedom, 
Chrysippus and the Stoics meant the freedom of doing what 
a man willed, if he willed it. A man is free, as to the 
thing that is in his power, when he wills it: he is not 
free, as to what is not in his power, under the same sup- 
position. The Stoics laid great stress on this distinction. 
They pointed out how much it is really in a man's power 
to transform or discipline his own mind: in the way of 



FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 519 

controlling or suppressing some emotions, generating or en- 
couraging others, forming new intellectual associations, &c, 
how much a man could do in these ways, if he ivilled it, and 
if he went through the lessons, habits of conduct, meditations, 
suitable to produce such an effect. The Stoics strove to 
create in a man's mind the volitions appropriate for such 
mental discipline, by depicting the beneficial consequences 
resulting from it, and the misfortune and shame inevitable, if 
the mind were not so disciplined. Their purpose was to 
strengthen the governing reason of his mind, and to enthrone 
it as a fixed habit and character, which would control by 
counter suggestions the impulse arising at each special moment- 
— particularly all disturbing terrors or allurements. This, in 
their view, is a free mind ; not one wherein volition is 
independent of all motive, but one wherein the susceptibility 
to different motives is tempered by an ascendant reason, so 
as to give predominance to the better motive against the 
worse. One of the strongest motives that they endeavoured 
to enforce, was the prudence and dignity of bringing our 
volitions into harmony with the schemes of Providence : 
which (they said) were always arranged with a view to the 
happiness of the kosmos on the whole. The bad man, whose 
volitions conflict with these schemes, is always baulked of 
his expectations, and brought at last against his will to see 
things carried by an overruling force, with aggravated pain 
and humiliation to himself: while the good man, who re- 
signs himself to them from the first, always escapes with 
less pain, and often without any at all. Ducunt volentem 
fata, nolentem trahunt. 

We have thus seen that in regard to the doctrine called in 
modern times the Freedom of the Will (i.e., that volitions are 
self-originating and unpredictable), the Stoic theorists not only 
denied it, but framed all their Ethics upon the assumption of 
the contrary. This same assumption of the contrary, indeed, 
was made also by Sokrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus : in 
short, by all the ethical teachers of antiquity. All of them 
believed that volitions depended on causes : that under the 
ordinary conditions of men's minds, the causes that voli- 
tions generally depended upon are often misleading and some- 
times ruinous : but that by proper stimulation from without 
and meditation within, the rational causes of volition might 
be made to overrule the impulsive. Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, 
not less than the Stoics, wished to create new fixed habits 
and a new type of character. They differed, indeed, on the 



520 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— THE STOICS. 

question what the proper type of character was : but each of 
them aimed at the same general end — a new type of character, 
regulating the grades of susceptibility to different motives. 
And the purpose of all and each of these moralists precludes 
the theory of free-will — i.e., the theory that our volitions are 
self-originating and unpredictable. 

III. — We must consider next the Stoical theory of Happi- 
ness, or rather of the Good, which with them was proclaimed 
to be the sole, indispensable, and self-sufficing condition of 
Happiness. They declared that Pleasure was no part of Good, 
and Pain no part of Evil ; therefore, that even relief from pain 
was not necessary to Good or Happiness. This, however, if 
followed out consistently, would dispense with all morality and 
all human endeavour. Accordingly, the Stoics were obliged 
to let in some pleasures as an object of pursuit, and some 
pains as an object of avoidance, though not under the title of 
Good and Evil, but with the inferior name of Sumenda and 
Rejicienda.* Substantially, therefore, they held that pains 
are an evil, but, by a proper discipline, may be triumphed 
over. They disallowed the .direct and ostensible pursuit of 
pleasure as an end (the point of view of Epicurus), but allured 
their followers partly by promising them the victory over pain, 
and partly by certain enjoyments of an elevated cast that grew 
out of their plan of life. 

Pain of every kind, whether from the casualties of exis- 
tence, or from, the severity of the Stoical virtues, was to be 
met by a discipline of endurance, a hardening process, which, 
if persisted in, would succeed in reducing the mind to a state 
of Apathy or indifference. A great many reflections were 
suggested in aid of this education. The influence of exercise 
and repetition in adapting the system to any new function, 
was illustrated by the Olympian combatants, and by the Lace- 
daemonian youth, who endured scourging without complaint. 
Great stress was laid on the instability of pleasure, and the 
constant liability to accidents ; whence we should always be 
anticipating and adapting ourselves to the worst that could 
happen, so as never to be in a state where anything could 
ruffle the mind. It was pointed out how much might still be 

* Aristotle and ths Peripatetics held that there were tria genera ban- 
orum : (1) Those of the mind (mens sanaj, (2) those of the body, and (3) 
external advantages. The Stoics altered this theory by saying that only 
the first of the three was bonum ; the others were merely prceposita or 
sumenda. The opponents of the Stoics contended that this was an altera- 
tion in words rather than in substance. 



THE STOICAL DISCIPLINE. 521 

made of the worst circumstances — poverty, banishment, public 
odium, sickness, old age — and every consideration was ad- 
vanced that could ' arm the obdurate breast with stubborn 
patience, as with triple steel.' It has often been remarked 
that such a discipline of endurance was peculiarly suited to 
the unsettled condition of the world at the time, when any 
man, in addition to the ordinary evils of life, might in a 
moment be sent into exile, or sold into slavery. 

Next to the discipline of endurance, we must rank the 
complacent sentiment of Pride, which the Stoic might justly 
feel in his conquest of himself, and in his lofty independence 
and superiority to the casualties of life.* The pride of the 
Cynic, the Stoic's predecessor, was prominent and offensive, 
showing itself in scurrility and contempt towards everybody 
else ; the Stoical pride was a refinement upon this, but was 
still a grateful sentiment of superiority, which helped to make 
up for the surrender of indulgences. It was usual to bestow 
the most extravagant laudation on the ' Wise Man/ and every 
Stoic could take this home to the extent that he considered 
himself as approaching that great ideal. 

The last and most elevated form of Stoical happiness was 
the satisfaction of contemplating the Universe and God. 
Epictetus says, that we can accommodate ourselves cheerfully 
to the providence that rules the world, if we possess two 
things — the power of seeing all that happens in the proper 
relation to its own purpose — and a grateful disposition. 
The work of Antoninus is full of studies of Nature in the 
devout spirit of ' passing from Nature up to Nature's God ;' 
he is never weary of expressing his thorough contentment 
with the course of natural events, and his sense of the beauties 
and fitness of everything. Old age has its grace, and death 
is the becoming termination. This high strain of exulting 
contemplation reconciled him to that complete submission to 
whatever might befall, which was the essential feature of the 
c Life according to Nature,' as he conceived it. 

IV. — The Stoical theory of Virtue is implicated in the 
ideas of the Good, now described. 

The fountain of all virtue is manifestly the life according 
to nature ; as being the life of subordination of self to more 
general interests — to family, country, mankind, the whole 

* This also might truly be said of the Epicureans ; though with them 
it is not so much pride, as a quiet self-satisfaction in escaping pains and 
disappointments that they saw others enduring. See the beginning of 
Lucretius' second book, and the last epistle of Epicurus to Idomeneus. 



522 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — THE STOICS, 

universe. If a man is prepared to consider himself absolutely 
nothing in comparison with the universal interest, and to 
regard it as the sole end of life, he has embraced an ideal of 
virtue of the loftiest order. Accordingly, the Stoics were the 
first to preach what is called f Cosmopolitanism ;' for although, 
in their reference to the good of the whole, they confounded 
together sentient life and inanimate objects — rocks, plants, 
&c, solicitude for which was misspent labour — yet they were 
thus enabled to reach the conception of the universal kind- 
ship of mankind, and could not but include in their regards 
the brute creation. They said: 'There is no difference between 
the Greeks and Barbarians ; the world is our city.' Seneca 
urges kindness to slaves, for ' are they not men like ourselves, 
breathing the same air, living and dying like ourselves ?' 

The Epicureans declined, as much as possible, interference 
in public affairs, but the Stoic philosophers urged men to the 
duties of active citizenship. Chrysippus even said that the 
life of philosophical contemplation (such as Aristotle preferred, 
and accounted godlike) was to be placed on the same level 
with the life of pleasure ; though Plutarch observes that 
neither Chrysippus nor Zeno ever meddled personally with 
any public duty; both of them passed their lives in lec- 
turing and writing. The truth is that both of them were 
foreigners residing at Athens ; and at a time when Athens 
was dependent on foreign princes. Accordingly, neither Zeno 
nor Chrysippus had any sphere of political action open to 
them ; they were, in this respect, like Epictetus afterwards — 
but in a position quite different from Seneca, the preceptor of 
Nero, who might hope to influence the great imperial power 
of Rome, and from Marcus Antoninus, who held that impe- 
rial power in his own hands. 

Marcus Antoninus — not only a powerful Emperor, but 
also the most gentle and amiable man of his day — talks of 
active beneficence both as a duty and a satisfaction. But in 
the creed of the Stoics generally, active Beneficence did not 
occupy a prominent place. They adopted the four Cardinal 
Virtues — Wisdom, or the Knowledge of Good and Evil ; 
Justice ; Fortitude ; Temperance — as part of their plan of the 
virtuous life, the life according to Nature. Justice, as the social 
virtue, was placed above all the rest. But the Stoics were 
not strenuous in requiring more than Justice, for the benefit 
of others beside the agent. They even reckoned compassion 
for the sufferings of others as a weakness, analogous to envy 
fgr the good fortune of others. 



STOICAL VIEW OF BENEFICENCE. 523 

The Stoic recognized the gods (or Universal Nature, 
equivalent expressions in his creed) as managing the affairs 
of the world, with a view to producing as much happiness 
as was attainable on the whole. Towards this end the gods 
did not want any positive assistance from him ; but it 
was his duty and his strongest interest, to resign himself 
to their plans, and to abstain from all conduct tending 
to frustrate them. Such refractory tendencies were per- 
petually suggested to him by the unreasonable appetites, 
emotions, fears, antipathies, &c, of daily life ; all claiming 
satisfaction at the expense of futare mischief to himself and 
others. To countervail these misleading forces, by means of 
a fixed rational character built up through meditation and 
philosophical teaching, was the grand purpose of the Stoic 
ethical creed. The emotional or appetitive self was to be 
starved or curbed, and retained only as an appendage to the 
rational self ; an idea proclaimed before in general terms by 
Plato, but carried out into a system by the Stoics, and to a 
great extent even by the Epicureans. 

The Stoic was taught to reflect how much that appears 
to be desirable, terror- striking, provocative, &c, is not really 
so, but is made to appear so by false and curable asso- 
ciations. And while he thus discouraged those self-regard- 
ing emotions that placed him in hostility with others, he 
learnt to respect the self of another man as well as his 
own. Epictetus advises to deal mildly with a man that 
hurts us either by word or deed; and advises it upon 
the following very remarkable ground. ■ Recollect that 
in what he says or does, he follows his own sense of pro- 
priety, not yours. He must do what appears to him right, 
not what appears to you ; if he judges wrongly, it is he that 
is hurt, for he is the person deceived. Always repeat to your- 
self, in such a case : The man has acted on his own opinion. ' 

The reason here given by Epictetus is an instance, memor- 
able in ethical theory, of respect for individual dissenting con- 
viction, even in an extreme case ; and it must be taken in 
conjunction with his other doctrine, that damage thus done 
to us unjustly is really little or no damage, except so far as we 
ourselves give pungency to it by our irrational susceptibilities 
and associations. We see that the Stoic submerges, as much 
as he can, the pre-eminence of his own individual self, and 
contemplates himself from the point of view of another, only 
as one among many. But he does not erect the happiness of 
others into a direct object of his own positive pursuit, beyond 



524 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — THE STOICS. 

the reciprocities of family, citizenship, and common humanity. 
The Stoic theorists agreed with Epicurus in inculcating the 
reciprocities of justice between all fellow-citizens ; and they 
even went farther than he did, by extending the sphere of 
such duties beyond the limits of city, so as to comprehend all 
mankind. But as to the reciprocities of individual friendship, 
Epicurus went beyond the Stoics, by the amount of self-sacrifice 
and devotion that he enjoined for the benefit of a friend. 

There is also in the Stoical system a recognition of duties 
to God, and of morality as based on piety. Not only are we 
all brethren, but also the ' children of one Father.' 

The extraordinary strain put upon human nature by the 
full Stoic ideal of submerging self in the larger interests of 
being, led to various compromises. The rigid following out 
of the ideal issued in one of the paradoxes, namely, — That all 
the actions of the wise man are equally perfect, and that, short 
of the standard of perfection, all faults and vices are equal ; 
that, for example, the man that killed a cock, without good 
reason, was as guilty as he that killed his father. This has a 
meaning only when we draw a line between spirituality and 
morality, and treat the last as worthless in comparison of the 
first. The later Stoics, however, in their exhortations to 
special branches of duty, gave a positive value to practical 
virtue, irrespective of the ideal. 

The idea of Duty was of Stoical origin, fostered and de- 
veloped by the Roman spirit and legislation. The early Stoics 
had two different words, — one for the ' suitable* (tcaOrjicov), or 
incomplete propriety, admitting of degrees, and below the 
point of rectitude, and another for the 'right' (KaropOwjaa), or 
complete rectitude of action, which none could achieve except 
the wise man. It is a significant circumstance that the 
4 suitable' is the lineal ancestor of our word ' duty' (through 
the Latin officiwm). 

It was a great point with the Stoic to be conscious of 
c advance ' or improvement.* By self-examination, he kept 

* This was a later development of Stoicism : the earlier theorists laid 
it down that there were no graduating marks below the level of wisdom ; 
all shortcomings were on a par. Good was a point, Evil was a point ; 
there were gradations in the prmposita or sumenda (none of which were 
good), and in the rejecta or rejicienda (none of which were evil), but there 
was no more or less good. The idea of advance by steps towards virtue 
or wisdom, was probably familiar to Sokrates, Plato, Aristotle, and 
Epicurus ; the Stoic theories, on the other hand, tended to throw it out 
of sight, though they insisted strenuously on the necessity of mental 
training and meditation. 






SELF-CONTKADICTIONS OF STOICISM. 525 

himself constantly acquainted with his moral state, and it was 
both his duty and his satisfaction to be approaching to the 
ideal of the perfect man. 

It is very illustrative of the unguarded points and contra- 
dictions of Stoicism, that contentment and apathy were not to 
permit grief even for the loss of friends. Seneca, on one occa- 
sion, admits that he was betrayed by human weakness on this 
point. On strict Stoical principles, we ought to treat the 
afflictions and the death of others with the same frigid indiffer- 
ence as our own ; for why should a man feel for a second 
person more than he ought to feel for himself, as a mere unit 
in the infinitude of the Universe ? This is the contradiction 
inseparable from any system that begins by abjuring pleasure, 
and relief or protection from pain, as the ends of life. Even 
granting that we regard pleasure and relief from pain as 
of no importance in our own case, yet if we apply the same 
measure to others we are bereft of all motives to benevo- 
lence ; and virtue, instead of being set on a loftier pinnacle, 
is left without any foundation. 

EPICUEUS. [341 -270 B.C.] 

Epicurus was born 341 B.C. in the island of Samos. At 
the age of eighteen, he repaired to Athens, where he is sup- 
posed to have enjoyed the teaching of Xenocrates or Theo- 
phrastus. In 306 B.C., he opened a school in a garden in 
Athens, whence his followers have sometimes been called the 
'philosophers of the garden.' His life was simple, chaste, and 
temperate. Of the 300 works he is said to have written, 
nothing has come down to us except three letters, giving a 
summary of his views for the use of his friends, and a number 
of detached sayings, preserved by Diogenes Laertius and 
others. Moreover, some fragments of his work on Nature have 
been found at Herculaneum. The additional sources of our 
knowledge of Epicurus are the works of his opponents, 
Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of his follower Lucretius. Our 
information from Epicurean writers respecting the doctrines 
of their sect is much less copious than what we possess 
from Stoic writers in regard to Stoic opinions. We have no 
Epicurean writer on Philosophy except Lucretius ; whereas 
respecting the Stoical creed under the Roman Empire, the im- 
portant writings of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Antoninus, 
afford most valuable evidence. 

To Epicurus succeeded, in the leadership of his school, 



526 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— EPICURUS. 

Hermachus, Polystratus, Dionysius, Basilides, and others, ten 
in number, down to the age of Augustus. Among Roman 
Epicureans, Lucretius (95 — 51 B.C.) is the most important, 
his poem (De Rerum Natura), being the completest account 
of the system that exists. Other distinguished followers were 
Horace, Atticus, and Lucian. In modern times, Pierre 
Gassendi (1592 — 1655) revived the doctrines of Epicurus, 
and in 1647 published his f Syntagma Philosophise Epicuri/ 
and a Life of Epicurus. The reputation of Gassendi, in his 
life time, rested chiefly upon his physical theories ; but his in- 
fluence was much felt as a Christian upholder of Epicureanism. 
Gassendi was at one time in orders as a Roman Catholic, and 
professor of theology and philosophy. He established an 
Epicurean school in France, among the disciples of which 
were, Moliere, Saint Evremond, Count de Grammont, the 
Duke of Rochefoucalt, Eontenelle, and Voltaire. 

The standard of Virtue and Vice is referred by Epicurus 
to pleasure and pain. Pain is the only evil, Pleasure is the 
only good. Virtue is no end in itself, to be sought : Vice is 
no end in itself, to be avoided. The motive for cultivating 
Virtue and banishing Vice arises from the consequences of 
each, as the means of multiplying pleasures and averting or 
lessening pains. But to the attainment of this purpose, the 
complete supremacy of Reason is indispensable ; in order that 
we may take a right comparative measure of the varieties of 
pleasure and pain, and pursue the course that promises the 
least amount of suffering. # 

In all ethical theories that make happiness the supreme 
object of pursuit, the position of virtue depends entirely upon 
the theory of what constitutes happiness. Now, Epicurus 
(herein differing from the Stoics, as well as Aristotle), did 
not recognize Happiness as anything but freedom from pain 

* This theory (taken in its most general sense, and apart from differ- 
ences in the estimation of particular pleasures and pains), had been pro- 
claimed long before the time of Epicurus. It is one of the various 
theories of Plato : for in his dialogue called Protagoras (though in other 
dialogues he reasons differently) we find it explicitly set forth and 
elaborately vindicated by his principal spokesman, Sokrates, against the 
Sophist Protagoras. It was also held by Aristippus (companion of 
Sokrates along with Plato) and by his followers after him, called the 
Cyrenaics. Lastly, it was maintained by Eudoxus, one of the most 
estimable philosophers contemporary with Aristotle. Epicurus was thus 
in no way the originator of the theory : but he had his own way of con- 
ceiving it — his own body of doctrine physical, cosmological, and theo- 
logical, with which it was implicated — and his own comparative valuation 
of pleasures and pains. 



REGULATION OF THE DESIRES. 527 

and enjoyment of pleasure. It is essential, however, to 
understand, how Epicurus conceived pleasure and pain, and 
what is the Epicurean scale of pleasures and pains, graduated 
as objects of reasonable desire or aversion ? It is a great 
error to suppose that, in making pleasure the standard of 
virtue, Epicurus had in view that elaborate and studied grati- 
fication of the sensual appetites that we associate with the 
word Epicurean. Epicurus declares — ' When we say that 
pleasure is the end of life, we do not mean the pleasures of 
the debauchee or the sensualist, as some from ignorance or 
from malignity represent, but freedom of the body from pain, 
and of the soul from anxiety. For it is not continuous 
drinkings and revellings, nor the society of women, nor rare 
viands, and other luxuries of the table, that constitute a 
pleasant life, but sober contemplation, such as searches out the 
grounds of choice and avoidance, and banishes those chimeras 
that harass the mind. 

Freedom from pain is thus made the primary element of 
happiness ; a one-sided view, repected in the doctrine of 
Locke, that it is not the idea of future good, but the pre- 
sent greatest uneasiness that most strongly affects the will. 
A neutral state of feeling is necessarii}^ imperilled by a greedy 
pursuit of pleasures ; hence the dictum, to be content with 
little is a great good ; because little is most easily obtained. 
The regulation of the desires is therefore of high moment. 
According to Epicurus, desires fall into three grades. Some 
are natural and necessary, such as desire of drink, food, or 
life, and are easily gratified. But when the uneasiness of a 
want is removed, the bodily pleasures admit of no farther 
increase ; anything additional only varies the pleasure. Hence 
the luxuries which go beyond the relief of our wants are 
thoroughly superfluous ; and the desires arising from them 
(forming the second grade) though natural, are not necessary. 
A third class of desires is neither natural nor necessary, but 
begotten of vain opinion ; such as the thirst for civic honours, 
or for power over others ; those desires are the most difficult to 
gratify, and even if gratified, entail upon us trouble, anxiety, 
and peril. [This account of the desires, following up the 
advice — If you wish to be rich, study not to increase your 
goods, but to diminish your desires — is to a certain extent 
wise and even indispensable ; yet not adapted to all tempera- 
ments. To those that enjoy pleasure very highly, and are 
not sensitive in an equal degree to pain, such a negative con- 
ception of happiness would be imperfect.] Epicurus did not, 



528 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— EPICURUS. 

however, deprecate positive pleasure. If it could be reached 
without pain, and did not result in pain, it was a pure good ; 
and, even if it could not be had without pain, the question 
was still open, whether it might not be well worth the price. 
But in estimating the worth of pleasure, the absence of any 
accompanying pain should weigh heavily in the balance. At 
this point, the Epicurean theory connects itself most inti- 
mately with the conditions of virtue ; for virtue is more con- 
cerned with averting mischief and suffering, than with multi- 
plying positive enjoyments. 

Bodily feeling, in the Epicurean psychology, is prior in 
order of time to the mental element; the former was primor- 
dial, while the latter was derivative from it by repeated pro- 
cesses of memory and association. But though such was the 
order of sequence and generation, yet when we compare the 
two as constituents of happiness to the formed man, the 
mental element much outweighed the bodily, both as pain and 
as pleasure. Bodily pain or pleasure exists only in the pre- 
sent ; when not felt, it is nothing. But mental feelings involve 
memory and hope — embrace the past as well as the future — 
endure for a long time, and may be recalled or put out of 
sight, to a great degree, at our discretion. 

This last point is one of the most remarkable features of 
the Epicurean mental discipline. Epicurus deprecated the 
general habit of mankind in always hankering after some 
new satisfaction to come ; always discontented with the pre- 
sent, and oblivious of past comforts as if they had never been. 
These past comforts ought to be treasured up by memory and 
reflection, so that they might become as it were matter for 
rumination, and might serve, in trying moments, even to 
counterbalance extreme physical suffering. The health of 
Epicurus himself was very bad during the closing years of 
his life. There remains a fragment of his last letter, to an 
intimate friend and companion, Idomeneus — 'I write this to 
you on the last day of my life, which, in spite of the severest 
internal bodily pains, is still a happy day, because I set against 
them in the balance all the mental pleasure felt in the recollec- 
tion of my past conversations with you. Take care of the 
children left by Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of your 
demeanour from boyhood towards me and towards philosophy/ 
Bodily pain might thus be alleviated, when it occurred; it 
might be greatly lessened in occurrence, by prudent and 
moderate habits ; lastly, even at the worst, if violent, it never 
lasted long ; if not violent, it might be patiently borne, and 



CAUSES OF HUMAN KISEKY. 529 

was at any rate terminated, or terminable at pleasure, by 
death. 

In the view of Epicurus, the chief miseries of life arose, 
not from bodily pains, but partly from delusions of hope, and 
exaggerated aspirations for wealth, honours, power, &c, in 
all which the objects appeared most seductive from a distance, 
inciting man to lawless violence and treachery, while in the 
reality they were always disappointments, and generally some- 
thing worse ; partly, and still more, from the delusions of 
fear. Of this last sort, were the two greatest torments of 
human existence — Fear of Death, and of eternal suffering after 
death, as announced by prophets and poets, and Fear of the 
Gods. Epicurus, who did not believe in the continued 
existence of the soul separate from the body, declared that 
there could never be any rational ground for fearing death, 
since it was simply a permanent extinction of consciousness.* 
Death was nothing to us (he said) ; when death comes, we 
are no more, either to suffer or to enjoy. Yet it was the 
groundless fear of this nothing that poisoned all the tranquil- 
lity of life, and held men imprisoned even when existence was a 
torment. Whoever had surmounted that fear was armed at once 
against cruel tyranny and against all the gravest misfortunes. 
Next, the fear of the gods was not less delusive, and hardly 
less tormenting, than tlie fear of death. It was a capital 
error (Epicurus declared) to suppose that the gods employed 
themselves as agents in working or superintending the march of 
the Cosmos ; or in conferring favour on some men, and admin- 
istering chastisement to others. The vulgar religious tales, 
which represented them in this character, were untrue and 
insulting as regards the gods themselves, and pregnant with 
perversion and misery as regards the hopes and fears of man- 
kind. Epicurus believed sincerely in the gods ; reverenced 
them as beings at once perfectly happy, immortal, and un- 
changeable ; and took delight in the public religious festivals 
and ceremonies. But it was inconsistent with these attri- 
butes, and repulsive to his feelings of reverence, to conceive 
them as agents. The idea of agency is derived from human 
experience ; we, as agents, act with a view to supply some 
want, to fulfil some obligation, to acquire some pleasure, to 

* The soul, according to Epicurus, was a subtle but energetic com- 
pound (of air, vapour, heat, and another nameless ingredient), with its best 
parts concentrated in the chest, yet pervading and sustaining the whole 
body ; still, however, depending for its support on the body, and incapable 
of separate or disembodied continuance. 

34 



530 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — EPICUKUS. 

accomplish some object desired but not yet attained — in short, 
to fill up one or other of the many gaps in our imperfect happi- 
ness ; the gods already have all that agents strive to get, and 
more than agents ever do get ; their condition is one not of 
agency, but of tranquil, self-sustaining, fruition. Accordingly, 
Epicurus thought (as Aristotle* had thought before him) 
that the perfect, eternal, and imperturbable well-being and 
felicity of the gods excluded the supposition of their being 
agents. He looked upon them as types of that unmolested 
safety and unalloyed satisfaction which was what he under- 
stood by pleasure or happiness — as objects of reverential 
envy, whose sympathy he was likely to obtain by assimilating 
his own temper and condition to theirs, as far as human 
circumstances allowed. 

These theological views were placed by Epicurus in the 
foreground of his ethical philosophy, as the only means of 
dispelling those fears of the gods that the current fables 
instilled into every one, and that did so much to destroy 
human comfort and security. He proclaimed that beings in 
immortal felicity neither suffered vexation in themselves nor 
caused vexation to others — neither showed anger nor favour 
to particular persons. The doctrine that they were the 
working managers in the affairs of the Cosmos, celestial and 
terrestrial, human and extra-human, he not only repudiated 
as incompatible with their attributes, but declared to be im- 
pious, considering the disorder, sufferings, and violence, 
everywhere visible. He disallowed all prophecy, divination, 
and oracular inspiration, by which the public around him 
believed that the gods were perpetually communicating 
special revelations to individuals, and for which Sokrates had 
felt so peculiarly thankful.f 

It is remarkable that Stoics and Epicureans, in spite of 
their marked opposition in dogma or theory, agreed so far 
in practical results, that both declared these two modes of 
uneasiness (fear of the gods and fear of death) to be the 
great torments of human existence, and both strove to remove 
or counterbalance them. 

So far, the teaching of Epicurus appears confined to the 
separate happiness of each individual, as dependent upon his 
own prudence, sobriety, and correct views of Nature. But 

* Aristot. De Coelo. II. a. 12, p. 292, 22, 6, 5. In the Ethics, Aristotle 
assigns theorizing contemplation to the gods, as the only process worthy 
of their exalted dignity and supreme felicity. 

f Xenophon Memor. I. 1—10 ; IV. 3—12. 



RECIPROCITY OF JUSTICE AND OF FRIENDSHIP. 531 

this is not the whole of the Epicurean Ethics. The system 
also considered each man as in companionship with others ; 
The precepts were shaped accordingly, first as to Justice, 
next as to Friendship. In both these, the foundation where- 
on Epicurus built was Reciprocity: not pure sacrifice 
to others, but partnership with others, beneficial to all. 
He kept the ideas of self and of others inseparably knit 
together in one complex association : he did not expel or 
degrade either, in order to give exclusive ascendancy to the 
other. The dictate of Natural Justice was that no man 
should hurt another : each was bound to abstain from doing 
harm to others ; each, on this condition, was entitled to count 
on security and relief from the fear that others would do harm 
to him. Such double aspect, or reciprocity, was essential to 
social companionship : those that could not, or would not, 
accept this covenant, were unfit for society. If a man does 
not behave justly towards others, he cannot expect that they 
will behave justly towards him ; to live a life of injustice, and 
expect that others will not find it out, is idle. The unjust 
man cannot enjoy a moment of security. Epicurus laid it 
down explicitly, that just and righteous dealing was the indis- 
pensable condition to every one's comfort, and was the best 
means of attaining it. 

The reciprocity of Justice was valid towards all the world ; 
the reciprocity of Friendship went much farther ; it involved 
indefinite and active beneficence, but could reach only to a 
select few. Epicurus insisted emphatically on the value of 
friendship, as a means of happiness to both the persons so 
united. He declared that a good friend was another self, and 
that friends ought to be prepared, in case of need, to die for 
each other. Yet he declined to recommend an established 
community of goods among the members of his fraternity, as 
prevailed in the Pythagorean brotherhood : for such an insti- 
tution (he said) implied mistrust. He recommended efforts 
to please and to serve, and a forwardness to give, for the pur- 
pose of gaining and benefiting a friend, and he even declared 
that there was more pleasure in conferring favours than in 
receiving them ; but he was no less strenuous in inculcating 
an intelligent gratitude on the receiver. No one except a 
wise man (he said) knew how to return a favour properly.* 

* These exhortations to active friendship were not unfruitful. We 
know, even by the admission of witnesses adverse to the Epicurean 
doctrines, that the harmony among the members of the sect, with common 
veneration for the founder, was more marked and more enduring than 



532 



ETHICAL SYSTEMS — EPICUKUS. 



Virtue and happiness, in the theory of Epicurus, were thus 
inseparable. A man could not be happy until he had sur- 
mounted the fear of death and the fear of gods instilled by the 
current fables, which disturbed all tranquillity of mind ; until 
he had banished those factitious desires that pushed him 
into contention for wealth, power, or celebrity ; nor unless he 
behaved with justice to all, and with active devoted friendship 
towards a few. Such a mental condition, which he thought 
it was in every man's power to acquire by appropriate teaching 
and companionship, constituted virtue ; and was the sure as well 
as the only precursor of genuine happiness. A mind thus un- 
disturbed and purified was sufficient to itself. The mere satis- 
faction of the wants of life, and the conversation of friends, 
became then felt pleasures ; if more could be had without pre- 
ponderant mischief, so much the better; but Nature, dis- 
burdened of her corruptions and prejudices, required no more 
to be happy. This at least was as much as the conditions of 
humanity admitted : a tranquil, undisturbed, innocuous, non- 
competitive fruition, which approached most nearly to the 
perfect happiness of the Gods.* 

The Epicurean theory of virtue is the type of all those that 
make an enlightened self-interest the basis of right and 
wrong. The four cardinal virtues were explained from the 
Epicurean point of view. Prudence was the supreme rule of 
conduct. It was a calculation and balancing of pleasures and 
pains. Its object was a judicious selection of pleasures to be 
sought. It teaches men to forego idle wishes, and to despise 
idle fears. Temperance is the management of sensual plea- 
sures. It seeks to avoid excess, so as on the whole to extract 

that exhibited by any of the other philosophical sects. Epicurus 
himself was a man of amiable personal qualities: his testament, still 
remaining, shows an affectionate regard, both for his surviving friends, 
and for the permanent attachment of each to the others, as well as of all 
to the school. Diogenes Laertius tells us — nearly 200 years after Christ, 
and 450 years after the death of Epicurus — that the Epicurean sect still 
continued its numbers and dignity, having outlasted its contemporaries 
and rivals. The harmony among the Epicureans may be explained, not 
merely from the temper of the master, but partly from the doctrines and 
plan of life that he recommended. Ambition and love of power were 
discouraged : rivalry among the members for success, either political or 
rhetorical, was at any rate a rare exception : all were taught to confine 
themselves to that privacy of life and love of philosophical communion 
which alike required and nourished the mutual sympathies of the 
brotherhood. 

* Consistently with this view of happiness, Epicurus advised, in 
regard to politics, quiet submission to established authority, without 
active meddling beyond what necessity required. 



FREE-WILL. 533 

as much, pleasure as our bodily organs are capable of affording. 
Fortitude is a virtue, because it overcomes fear and pain. It 
consists in facing danger or enduring pain, to avoid greater 
possible evils. Justice is of artificial origin. It consists in a 
tacit agreement among mankind to abstain from injuring one 
another. The security that every man has in his person and 
property, is the great consideration urging to abstinence from 
injuring others. But is it not possible to commit injustice 
with safety ? The answer was, ' Injustice is not an evil in 
itself, but becomes so from the fear that haunts the injurer of 
not being able to escape the appointed avengers of such acts/ 

The Physics of Epicurus were borrowed in the main from 
the atomic theory of Democritus, but were modified by him in 
a manner subservient and contributory to his ethical scheme. 
To that scheme it was essential that those celestial, atmos- 
pheric, or terrestrial phenomena that the public around him 
ascribed to the agency and purposes of the gods, should be un- 
derstood as being produced by physical causes. An eclipse, an 
earthquake, a storm, a shipwreck, unusual rain or drought, a 
good or a bad harvest — and not merely these, but many other 
occurrences far smaller and more unimportant, as we may see 
by the eighteenth chapter of the Characters of Theophrastus 
— were then regarded as visitations of the gods, requiring to 
be interpreted by recognized prophets, and to be appeased by 
ceremonial expiations. When once a man became convinced 
that all these phenomena proceeded from physical agencies, a 
host of terrors and anxieties would disappear from the mind ; 
and this Epicurus asserted to be the beneficent effect and real 
recommendation of physical philosophy. He took little or no 
thought for scientific curiosity as a motive per se, which both 
Democritus and Aristotle put so much in the foreground. 

Epicurus adopted the atomistic scheme of Democritus, but 
with some important variations. He conceived that the atoms all 
moved with equal velocity in the downward direction of gravity. 
But it occurred to him that upon this hypothesis there could 
never occur any collisions or combinations of the atoms — 
nothing but continued and unchangeable parallel lines. Accord- 
ingly, he modified it by saying that the line of descent was not 
exactly rectilinear, but that each atom deflected a little from the 
straight line, and each in its own direction and degree ; so that 
it became possible to assume collisions, resiliences, adhesions, 
combinations, among them, as it had been possible under the 
variety of original movements ascribed to them by Democritus. 
The opponents of Epicurus derided this auxiliary hypothesis ; 



53 i ETHICAL SYSTEMS — EPICURUS. 

they affirmed that he invented the individual deflection of each 
atom, without assigning any cause, and only because he was 
perplexed by the mystery of man's free-will. But Epicurus 
was not more open to attack on this ground than other phy- 
sical philosophers. Most of them (except perhaps the most 
consistent of the Stoic fatalists) believed that some among 
the phenomena of the universe occurred in regular and pre- 
dictable sequence, while others were essentially irregular and 
unpredictable ; each philosopher devised his hypothesis, and 
recognized some fundamental principle, to explain the first 
class of phenomena as well as the second. Plato admitted an 
invincible Erratic necessity ; Aristotle introduced Chance and 
Spontaneity ; Democritus multiplied indefinitely the varieties 
of atomic movements. The hypothetical deflexion alleged 
by Epicurus was his way, not more unwarranted than the 
others, of providing a fundamental principle for the unpre- 
dictable phenomena of the universe. Among these are the 
mental ^including the volitional) manifestations of men and 
animals ; but there are many others besides ; and there is no 
ground for believing that the mystery of free-will was pecu- 
liarly present to his mind. The movements of a man or 
animal are not exclusively subject to gravitation and other 
general laws ; they are partly governed by mental impulses 
and by forces of the organism, intrinsic and peculiar to him- 
self, unseen and unfelt by others. Eor these, in common with 
many other untraceable phenomena in the material world, 
Epicurus provides a principle in the supplementary hypo- 
thesis of deflexion. He rejected the fatalism contained 
in the theories of some of the Stoics, and admitted a 
limited range of empire to chance, or irregularity. But 
he maintained that the will, far from being among the 
phenomena essentially irregular, is under the influence of 
motives ; for no man can insist more strenuously than he 
does (see the Letter to Menoeceus) on the complete power of 
philosophy, — if the student could be made to feel its necessity 
and desire the attainment of it, so as to meditate and engrain 
within himself sound views about the gods, death, and human 
life generally, — to mould our volitions and character, in a 
manner conformable to the exigencies of virtue and happiness. 
When we read the explanations given by Epicurus and 
Lucretius of what the Epicurean theory really was, and com- 
pare them with the numerous attacks made upon it by oppo- 
nents, we cannot but remark that the title or formula of the 
theory was ill chosen, and was really a misnomer. What 



PLOTINUS. 535 

Epicurus meant by Pleasure was, not what most people meant 
by it, but something very different — a tranquil and comfortable 
state of mind and body ; much the same as what Democritus 
had expressed before him by the phrase ivOvpla. This last 
phrase would have expressed what Epicurus aimed at, neither 
more nor less. It would at least have preserved his theory 
from much misplaced sarcasm and aggressive rhetoric. 

THE NEO-PLATONISTS. 
PLOTINUS (a.d. 205-70), PORPHYRY, &c. 

Constructed with reference to the broken-down state of 
ancient society, and seeking its highest aim in a regenera- 
tion of humanity, the philosophical system of Neo-Platonism 
was throughout ethical or ethico-religious in spirit ; yet its 
ethics admits of no great development according to the 
usual topics. A pervading ethical character is not incom- 
patible with the absence of a regular ethical scheme ; and 
there was this peculiarity in the system, that its end, though 
professedly moral, was to be attained by means of an intel- 
lectual regimen. In setting up its ideal of human effort, it 
was least of all careful about prescribing a definite course of 
external conduct. 

The more strictly ethical views of Plotinus, the chief re- 
presentative of the school, are found mainly in the first of the 
six Enneads into which Porphyry collected his master's essays. 
But as they presuppose the cosmological and psychological 
doctrines, their place in the works, as now arranged, is to be 
regarded as arbitrary. The soul having fallen from its 
original condition, and, in consequence and as a penalty, 
having become united with a material body, the one true 
aim recognized for human action is, to rise above the de- 
basing connection with matter, and again to lead the old 
spiritual life. For those that have sunk so far as to be con- 
tent with the world of sense, wisdom consists in pursuing 
pleasure as good, and shunning pain as evil : but the others 
can partake of a better life, in different degrees. The first 
step in reformation is to practise virtue in the affairs of life, 
which means to subject Sense and the lower desires to Reason. 
This is done in the fourfold form of the common cardinal 
virtues, called political by Plotinus, to mark the sphere of 
action where they can be exerted, and is the virtue of a class 
of men capable of a certain elevation, though ignorant of all the 
rest that lies above them. A second step is made through the 









536 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — THE NEO-PLATOSTISTS. 

means of the KaOapvei? or purifying virtues ; where it is sought to 
root out, instead of merely moderating, the sensual affections. 
If the soul is thus altogether freed from the dominion of sense, 
it becomes at once able to follow its natural bent towards 
good, and enters into a permanent state of calm. This is 
virtue in its true meaning — becoming like to the Deity, all 
that went before being merely a preparation. The pure and 
perfect life of the soul may still be described as a field 
whereon the four virtues are exercised, but they now assume 
a far higher meaning than as political virtues, having relation 
solely to the contemplative life of the Nous. 

Happiness is unknown to Plotinus as distinct from per- 
fection, and perfection in the sense of having subdued all 
material cravings (except as regards the bare necessities of 
life), and entered upon the undisturbed life of contemplation. 
If this recalls, at least in name, the Aristotelian ideal, there 
are points added that appear to be echoes of Stoicism. Rapt 
in the contemplation of eternal verities, the purified soul is 
indifferent to external circumstances : pain and suffering are 
unheeded, and the just man can feel happy even in the bull of 
Phalaris. But in one important respect the Neo- Platonic 
teaching is at variance with Stoical doctrine. Though its 
first and last precept is to rid the soul from the bondage of 
matter, it warns against the attempt to sever body and soul 
by suicide. By no forcible separation, which would be 
followed by a new junction, but only by prolonged internal 
effort is the soul so set free from the world of sense, as to be 
able to have a vision of its ancient home while still in the 
body, and to return to it at death. Small, therefore, as is 
the consideration bestowed by Neo-Platonisin on the affairs 
of practical life, it has no disposition to shirk the burden of 
them. 

One other peculiar aim, the highest of all, is proposed to 
the soul in the Alexandrian philosophy. It is peculiar, because 
to be understood only in connexion with the metaphysics and 
cosmology of the system. In the theory of Emanation, the 
primordial One or Good emits the Nous wherein the Ideas are 
immanent ; the Nous, in turn, sends forth the Soul, and the 
Soul, Matter or nature ; the gradation applying to man as well 
as to the Universe. Now, to each of these principles, there is 
a corresponding subjective state in the inner life of man. 
The life of sense answers to nature or the material body ; the 
virtue that is founded upon free-will and reason, to the soul; 
the contemplative life, as the result of complete purification 



ABAELART). 537 

from sense, to the Nous or Sphere of Ideas ; finally, to the One 
or Good, supreme in the scale of existence, corresponds the 
state of Love, or, in its highest form, Ecstasy. This peculiar 
elevation is something far above the highest intellectual con- 
templation, and is not reached by thought. It is not even a 
mere intuition of, but a real union or contact with, the Good. 
To attain it, there must be a complete withdrawal into self 
from the external world, and then the subject must wait 
quietly till perchance the state comes on. It is one of ineffable 
bliss, but, from the nature of man, transitory and rare. 

SCHOLASTIC ETHICS. 

Abaelabd (1079-1142) has a special treatise on the subject 
of Ethics, entitled Scito te ipsum. As the name implies, it 
lays chief stress upon the Subjective element in morality, and, 
in this aspect, is considered to supply the idea that underlies 
a very large portion of modern ethical speculation. By nature 
a notoriously independent thinker, Abaelard claimed for philo- 
sophy the right of discussing ethical questions and fixing a 
natural moral law, though he allowed a corrective in the 
Christian scheme. Having this position with reference to the 
church, he was also much less under the yoke of philosophical 
authority than his successors, from living at a time when 
Aristotle was not yet supreme. Yet, with Aristotle, he assigns 
the attainment of the highest good as the aim of all human 
effort, Ethics showing the way ; and, with the schoolmen gene- 
rally, pronounces the highest good to be God, If the highest 
good in itself is God, the highest human good is love to God. 
This is attained by way of virtue, which is a good Will con- 
solidated into a habit. On the influence of habit on action his 
view is Aristotelian. His own specialty lies in his judging 
actions solely with reference to the intention (intentio) of the 
agent, and this intention with reference to conscience (con- 
scientia). All actions, he says, are in themselves indifferent, 
and not to be called good or evil except from the intention of 
the doer. Peccatum is properly only the action that is done 
with evil intent ; and where this is present, where the mental 
consent (consensus J is clearly established, there is peccatum, 
though the action remains unexecuted. When the consensus 
is absent, as in original sin, there is only vitium ; hence, a 
life without jpeccata is not impossible to men in the exercise 
of their freedom, however difficult it may be. 

The supremacy assigned by him to the subjective element 
of conscience appears in such phrases as, there is no sin except 



538 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— SCHOLASTIC ETHICS. 

against conscience ; also in the opinion be pronounces, that, 
though in the case of a mistaken moral conviction, an action 
is not to be called good, yet it is not so bad as an action 
objectively right but done against conscience. Thus, with- 
out allowing that conscientious persecutors of Christians act 
rightly, he is not afraid, in the application of his principle, 
to say that they would act still more wrongly if through 
not listening to their conscience, they spared their victims. 
But this means only that by following conscience we avoid 
sinning ; for virtue in the full sense, it is necessary that the 
conscience should have judged rightly. By what standard, 
however, this is to be ascertained, he nowhere clearly says. 
Gontemjptus Dei, given by him as the real and only thing that 
constitutes an action bad, is merely another subjective de- 
scription. 

St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), the strenuous 
opponent of Abaelard, and the great upholder of mysticism 
against rationalism in the early scholastic period when the 
two were not yet reconciled, gave utterance, in the course of 
his mystical effusions, to some special views of love and dis- 
interestedness. 

There are two degrees of Christian virtue, Humility and 
Charity or Love. When men look into themselves, and behold 
the meanness that is found there, the fitting state of mind is, 
first, humility; but soon the sense of their very weakness 
begets in them charity and compassion towards others, while 
the sense also of a certain human dignity raises within them 
feelings of love towards the author of their being. The treatise 
De Amove Dei sets forth the nature of this love, which is the 
highest exercise of human powers. Its fundamental charac- 
teristic is its disinterestedness. It has its reward, but from 
meriting, not from seeking. It is purely voluntary, and, as a 
free sentiment, necessarily unbought ; it has God for its single 
object, and would not be love to God, if he were loved faa? the 
sake of something else. 

He distinguishes various degrees of love. There is, first, 
a natural love of self for the sake of self. Next, a motion 
of love towards God amid earthly misfortunes, which also is 
not disinterested. The third degree is different, being love to 
God for his own sake, and to our neighbour for God's sake. 
Bat the highest grade of all is not reached, until men come to 
love even themselves only by relation to God ; at this point, 
with the disappearance of all special and interested affection, 
the mystic goal is attained. 



REVIVAL OF ARISTOTLE. 539 

John of Salisbury (d. 1180) is the last name to be cited 
in the early scholastic period. He professed to be a practical 
philosopher, to be more concerned about the uses of know- 
ledge than about knowledge itself, and to subordinate every- 
thing to some purpose ; by way of protest against the theo- 
retic hair-splitting and verbal subtleties of his predecessors. 
Even more than in Ethics, he found in Politics his proper sphere. 
He was the staunchest upholder of the Papal Supremacy, 
which, after long struggles, was about to be established at its 
greatest height, before presiding at the opening of the most 
brilliant period of scholasticism. 

In the Policraticus especially, but also in his other works, 
the foundations and provisions of his moral system are found. 
He has no distinction to draw in Ethics between theology and 
philosophy, but uses Scripture and observation alike, though 
Scripture always in the final appeal. Of philosophizing, the 
one final aim, as also of existence, is Happiness ; the question 
of questions, how it is to be attained. Happiness is not 
pleasure, nor possession, nor honour, but consists in following 
the path of virtue. Virtue is to be understood from the consti- 
tution of human nature. In man, there is a lower and a higher 
faculty of Desire ; or, otherwise expressed, there are the 
various affections that have their roots in sense and centre in 
self-love or the desire of self-preservation, and there is also a 
natural love of justice implanted from the beginning. In 
proportion as the apjpetitus justi, which consists in will, 
gains upon the apjpetitus commodi, men become more worthy 
of a larger happiness. Self-love rules in man, so long as 
he is in the natural state of sin ; if, amid great conflict and 
by divine help, the higher affection gains the upper hand, 
the state of true virtue, which is identical with the theoretic 
state of belief, and also of pure love to God and man, is 
reached. 

By the middle of the thirteenth century, the schoolmen had 
before them the whole works of Aristotle, obtained from 
Arabian and other sources. Whereas, previous to this time, 
they had comprehended nearly all the subjects of Philosophy 
under the one name of Dialectics or Logic, always reserving, 
however, Ethics to Theology, they were now made aware of 
the ancient division of the sciences, and of what had been 
accomplished in each. The effect, both in respect of form 
and of subject-matter, was soon apparent in such compilations 
or more independent works as they were able to produce 
after their commentaries on the Aristotelian text. But in 



540 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— SCHOLASTIC ETHICS. 

Ethics, the nature of the subject demanded of men in 
their position a less entire submission to the doctrines of 
the pagan philosopher ; and here accordingly they clung 
to the traditional theological treatment. If they were 
commenting on the Ethics of Aristotle, the Bible was at hand 
to supply his omissions ; if they were setting up a complete 
moral system, they took little more than the ground-work 
from him, the rest being Christian ideas and precepts, or 
fragments borrowed from Platonism and other Greek systems, 
nearly allied in spirit to their own faith. 

This is especially true, as will be seen, of Thomas Aquinas. 
His predecessors can be disposed of in a few words. 
Alexander of Hales (d. 1245) was almost purely theological. 
Bonaventura (1221-74) in his double character of rigid Fran- 
ciscan and mystic, was led far beyond the Aristotelian Ethics. 
The mean between excess and defect is a very good rule for 
the affairs of life, but the true Christian is bound besides to 
works of supererogation: first of all, to take on the con- 
dition of poverty ; while the state of mystic contemplation 
remains as a still higher goal for the few. Albert the Great 
(1193-1280), the most learned and complete commentator of 
Aristotle that had yet appeared, divide the whole subject of 
Ethics into Monastica, (Economica, and Politico,. In this 
division, which is plainly suggested by the Aristotelian division 
of Politics in the large sense, the term Monastica not inaptly 
expresses the reference that Ethics has to the conduct of men 
as individuals. Albert, however, in commenting on the 
Nicomaehean Ethics, adds exceeedingly little to the results of 
his author beyond the incorporation of a few Scriptural ideas. 
To the cardinal virtues he appends the virtutes adjunctce, 
Faith, Hope, and Charity, and again in his compendious work, 
Summa Theologice, distinguishes them as iwfusce, the cardinal 
being considered as acquisitce. 

Besides his commentaries on the Aristotelian works (the 
Ethics included) and many other writings, Thomas Aquinas 
(1226-74) left two large works, the Summa jpliilosophica 
and the famous Summa Theologice. Notwithstanding the 
prominence assigned to theological questions, the first is a 
regular philosophical work; the second, though containing 
the exposition of philosophical opinions, is a theological text- 
book. Now, as it is in the Summary for theological purposes 
that the whole practical philosophy of Aquinas is contained, 
it is to be inferred that he regarded the subject of Ethics 
as not on the same level with other departments of philo- 



THOMAS AQUINAS. 541 

sophy. Moreover, even when he is not appealing to Scrip- 
ture, he is seen to display what is for him a most unusual 
tendency to desert Aristotle, at the really critical moments, 
for Plato or Plotinus, or any other authority of a more theo- 
logical cast. 

In the (unfinished) Summa Theologice, the Ethical views 
and cognate questions occupy the two sections of the second 
part — the so-called prima and secunda secundce. He begins, in 
the Aristotelian fasbion, by seeking an ultimate end of human 
action, and finds it in the attainment of the highest good or 
happiness. But as no created thing can answer to the idea 
of the highest good, it must be placed in God. God, however, 
as the highest good, can only be the object, in the search after 
human happiness, for happiness in itself is a state of the 
mind or act of the soul. The question then arises, what sort 
of act ? Does it fall under the Will or under the Intelligence ? 
The answer is, Not under the will, because happiness is neither 
desire nor pleasure, but consecutio, that is, a possessing. Desire 
precedes consecutio, and pleasure follows upon it ; but the act 
of getting possession, in which lies happiness, is distinct from 
both. This is illustrated by the case of the miser having his 
happiness in the mere possession of money ; and the position 
is essentially the same as Butler's, in regard to our appetites 
and desires, that they blindly seek their objects with no regard 
to pleasure. Thomas concludes that the consecutio, or hap- 
piness, is an act of the intelligence ; what pleasure there is 
being a mere accidental accompaniment. 

Distinguishing between two phases of the intellect — the 
theoretic and the practical — in the one of which it is an end 
to itself, but in the other subordinated to an external aim, he 
places true happiness in acts of the self-sufficing theoretic 
intelligence. In this life, however, such a constant exercise 
of the intellect is not possible, and accordingly what happi- 
ness there is, must be found, in great measure, in the exercise 
of the practical intellect, directing and governing the lower 
desires and passions. This twofold conception of happiness 
is Aristotelian, even as expressed by Thomas under the 
distinction of perfect and imperfect happiness ; but when 
he goes on to associate perfect happiness with the future 
life only, to found an argument for a future life from the 
desire of a happiness more perfect than can be found here, 
and to make the pure contemplation, in which consists highest 
bliss, a vision of the divine essence face to face, a direct 
cognition of Deity far surpassing demonstrative knowledge or 



542 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— SCHOLASTIC ETHICS. 

mortal faith — be is more theologian than philosopher, or if 
a philosopher, more Platonist than Aristotelian. 

The condition of perfect happiness being a theoretic or 
intellectual state, the visio, and not the delectatio, is consistently- 
given as its central fact ; and when he proceeds to consider the 
other questions of Ethics, the same superiority is steadily 
ascribed to the intellectual function. It is because we know a 
thing to be good that we wish it, and knowing it, we cannot 
help wishing. Conscience, as the name implies, is allied to 
knowledge. Reason gives the law to will. 

After a long disquisition about the passions and the whole 
appetitive side of human nature, over which Reason is called 
to rule, he is brought to the subject of virtue. He is Aristo- 
telian enough to describe virtue as habitus — a disposition or 
quality (like health) whereby a subject is more or less well dis- 
posed with reference to itself or something else ; and he takes 
account of the acquisition of good moral habits (virlutes acqui- 
sitoe) by practice. But with this he couples, or tends to sub- 
stitute for it, the definition of Augustin that virtue is a good 
quality of mind, quam Deus in nobis sine nobis ojoeratur, as 
a ground for virtutes infusce, conferred as gifts upon man, or 
rather on certain men, by free grace from on high. He 
wavers greatly at this stage, and in this respect his attitude is 
characteristic for all the schoolmen. 

So again in passing from the general question of Virtue 
to the virtues, he puts several of the systems under contribu- 
tion, as if not prepared to leave the guidance of Aristotle, but 
feeling at the same time the necessity of bridging over the 
distance between his position and Christian requirements. 
Understanding Aristotle to make a co-ordinate division of 
virtues into Moral and Intellectual, he gives reasons for such 
a step. Though virtue, he says, is not so much the perfecting 
of the operation of our faculties, as their employment by the 
will for good ends, it may be used in the first sense, and thus 
the intellectual virtues will be the habits of intelligence that 
procure the truest knowledge. The well-known division of 
the cardinal virtues is his next theme ; and it is established as 
complete and satisfactory by a twofold deduction. But a 
still higher and more congenial view is immediately after- 
wards adopted from Plotinus. This is the Neo- PI atonic 
description of the four virtues as jooliticce, purgatorice, and 
purgati animi, according to' the scale of elevation reached 
by the soul in its efforts to mount above sense. They are 
called by Thomas also exemplar es f when regarded at once 






AQUINAS ON THE VIRTUES. 543 

as the essence of the Deity, and as the models of human 
perfections. 

This mystical division, not unsupported by philosophical 
authority, smooths the way for his account of the highest 
or theological virtues. These bear upon the vision of Deity, 
which was recognized above as the highest good of humanity, 
and form an order apart. They have God for their object, 
are* altogether inspired by God (hence called infusce), and are 
taught by revelation* Given in connection with the natural 
faculties of intellect and will, they are exhibited in the attain- 
ment of the supernatural order of things. With intellect goes 
Faith, as it were the intellect applied to things not intelligible ; 
with Will go Hope and Charity or Love : Hope being the Will 
exercised upon things not naturally desired, and Love the 
union of Will with what is not naturally brought near to us. 

Aquinas then passes to politics, or at least the discussion 
of the political ideas of law, right, &c. 

Coming now to modern, thinkers, we begin with 

THOMAS HOBBES. [1588-1679.] 

The circumstances of Hobbes's life, so powerful in deter- 
mining the nature of his opinions, had an equally marked 
effect on the order and number of expositions that he gave to 
the psychological and political parts of his system. His 
ethical doctrines, in as far as they can be dissociated from 
his politics, may be studied in no less than three distinct 
forms ; either in the first part of the Leviathian (1651) ; or 
in the De Cive (1647), taken along with the Be Homine 
(1658); or in the Treatise of Human Nature (1650, but written 
ten years earlier), coupled with the De Corpore Politico (also 
1650). But the same result, or with only unimportant varia- 
tions, being obtained from all, we need not here go beyond 
the first-mentioned. 

In the first part of the Leviathan, then, bearing the title 
Of Man, and designed to consider Man as at once the matter 
and artificer of the Commonwealth or State, Hobbes is led, 
after discussing Sense, Imagination, Train of Imaginations, 
Speech, Reason and Science, to take up, in chapter sixth, the 
Passions, or, as he calls them, the Interior beginnings of volun- 
tary motions. Motions, he says, are either vital and animal, 
or voluntary. Vital motions, e.g., circulation, nutrition, &c, 
need no help of imagination ; on the other hand, voluntary 
motions, as going and speaking — since they depend on a pre- 
cedent thought of whither, which way, and what — have in 



544 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— HOBBES. 

the imagination their first beginning. But imagination is 
only the relics of sense, and sense, as Hobbes always declares, 
is motion in the human organs communicated by objects 
without ; consequently, visible voluntary motions begin in 
invisible internal motions, whose nature is expressed by the 
word Endeavour. When the endeavour is towards something 
causing it, there is Appetite or Desire ; endeavour \ fromward 
something' is Aversion. These very words, and the corre- 
sponding terms in Greek, imply an actual, not— as the school- 
men absurdly think— a metaphorical motion. Passing from 
the main question, he describes Love and Hate as Desire and 
Aversion when the object is present. Of appetites, some are 
born with us, others proceed from experience, being of parti- 
cular things. Where we neither desire nor hate, we contemn 
[he means, disregard]. Appetites and aversions vary in the 
same person, and much more in different persons. 

Then follows his definition of good,— the object of any 
man's appetite or desire, as evil is the object of his hate and 
aversion. Good and evil are always merely relative, either to 
the person of a man, or in a commonwealth to the representa- 
tive person, or to an arbitrator if chosen to settle a dispute. 
Good in the promise is pulchrum, for which there is no exact 
English term; good in the effect, as the end desired, is 
delightful ; good as the means, is useful or profitable. There 
is the same variety of evil. 

His next topic is Pleasure. As sense is, in reality, motion, 
but, in 'apparence/ light or sound or odour; so appetite, in 
reality a motion or endeavour effected in the heart by the 
action of objects through the organs of sense, is, in 'appar- 
ence,' delight or trouble of mind. The emotion, whose op- 
parence (i.e., subjective side) is pleasure or delight, seems 
to be a corroboration of vital motion ; the contrary, in the 
case of molestation. Pleasure is, therefore, the sense of 
good ; displeasure, the sense of evil. The one accompanies, 
in greater or less degree, all desire and love ; the other, 
all aversion and hatred. Pleasures are either of sense; 
or of the mind, when arising from the expectation that pro- 
ceeds from the foresight of the ends or consequence of things, 
irrespective of their pleasing the senses or not. For these 
mental pleasures, there is the general name joy. There is a 
corresponding division of displeasure into pain and grief. 

Air the other passions, he now proceeds to show, are 
these simple passions — appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, 
joy, and grief, diversified in name for divers considerations. 



SIMPLE PASSIONS. 545 

Incidental remarks of ethical importance are these. Covet- 
oiisness, the desire of riches, is a name signifying blame, 
because men contending for them are displeased with others 
attaining them ; the desire itself, however, is to be blamed or 
allowed, according to the means whereby the riches are sought. 
Curiosity is a Inst of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight 
in the continual generation of knowledge, exceedeth the short 
vehemence of any carnal pleasure. Pity is grief for the calamity 
of another, arising from the imagination of the like calamity 
befalling one's self; the best men have, therefore, least pity 
for calamity arising from great wickedness. Contempt, or little 
sense of the calamity of others, proceeds from security of one's 
own fortune ; * for that any man should take pleasure in other 
men's great harms, without other end of his own, I do not 
conceive it possible.' 

Having explained the various passions, he then gives his 
theory of the Will. He supposes a liberty in man of doing or 
omitting, according to appetite or aversion. But to this 
liberty an end is put in the state of deliberation wherein there 
is kept up a constant succession of alternating desires and 
aversions, hopes and fears, regarding one and the same thing. 
One of two results follows. Either the thing is judged im- 
possible, or it is done ; and this, according as aversion or 
appetite triumphs at the last. Now, the last aversion, fol- 
lowed by omission, or the last appetite, followed by action, 
is the act of Willing. Will is, therefore, the last appetite 
(taken to include aversion) in deliberating. So-called Will, 
that has been forborne, was inclination merely ; but the last 
inclination with consequent action (or omission) is Will, or 
voluntary action. 

After mentioning the forms of speech where the several 
passions and appetites are naturally expressed, and remarking 
that the truest signs of passion are in the countenance, 
motions of the body, actions, and ends or aims otherwise 
known to belong to a man, — he returns to the question of good 
and evil. It is apparent good and evil, come at by the best 
possible foresight of all the consequences of action, that excite 
the appetites and aversions in deliberation. Felicity he defines 
continual success in obtaining the things from time to time 
desired; perpetual tranquillity of mind being impossible in 
this life, which is but motion, and cannot be without desire 
and fear any more than without sense. The happiness of the 
future life is at present unknown. 

Men, he says at the close, praise the goodness, and magnify 
35 



54:6 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— HOBBES. 

the greatness, of a thing; the Greeks had also the word 
jbLcucapie/uLos, to express an opinion of a man's felicity. 

In Chapter VII., Of the Ends of Discourse, he is led to 
remark on the meaning of Conscience, in connection with the 
word Conscious. Two or more men, he says, are conscious of 
a thing when they know it together (con-scire.) Hence arises 
the proper meaning of conscience ; and the evil of speaking 
against one's conscience, in this sense, is to be allowed. Two 
other meanings are metaphorical : when it is put for a man's 
knowledge of his own secret facts and thoughts ; and when men 
give their own new opinions, however absurd, the reverenced 
name of conscience, as if they would have it seem unlawful to 
change or speak against them. [Hobbes is not concerned to 
foster the moral independence of individuals.] 

He begins Chapter VIII. by denning Virtue as something 
that is valued for eminence, and that consists in comparison, 
but proceeds to consider only the intellectual virtues — all that 
is summed up in the term of a good wit — and their opposites. 
Farther on, he refers difference of wits — discretion, prudence, 
craft, &c. — to difference in the passions, and this to difference 
in constitution of body and of education. The passions 
chiefly concerned are the desires of power, riches, knowledge, 
honour, but all may be reduced to the single desire of power. 

In Chapter IX. is given his Scheme of Sciences. The 
relation in his mind between Ethics and Politics is here seen. 
Science or Philosophy is divided into Natural or Civil, ac- 
cording as it is knowledge of consequences from the accidents 
of natural bodies or of politic bodies. Ethics is one of the 
ultimate divisions of Natural Philosophy, dealing with conse- 
quences from the passions of men ; and because the passions 
are qualities of bodies, it falls more immediately under the 
head of Physics. Politics is the whole of the second main 
division, and deals with consequences from the institution of 
commonwealths (1) to the rights and duties of the Sovereign, 
and (2) to the duty and right of the Subject. 

Ethics, accordingly, in Hobbes's eyes, is part of the science 
of man (as a natural body) , and it is always treated as such. 
But subjecting, as he does, so much of the action of the indi- 
vidual to the action of the state, he necessarily includes in 
his Politics many questions that usually fall to Ethics. Hence 
arises the necessity of studying for his Ethics also part of the 
civil Philosophy; though it happens that, in the Leviathan, 
this requisite part is incorporated with the Section containing 
the Science of Man. 



POWEK. — HAPPINESS. 547 

Chapter X. is on Power, Worth, Dignity, Honour, and 
Worthiness. A man's power being his present means to 
obtain some future apparent good, he enumerates all the 
sources of original and acquired power. The worth of a man 
is what would be given for the use of his power ; it is, there- 
fore, never absolute, but dependent on the need and judgment 
of another. Dignity is the value set on a man by the state. 
Honour and dishonour are the manifestation of value. He goes 
through all the signs of honour and dishonour. Honourable 
is any possession, action, or quality that is the sign of power. 
Where there is the opinion of power, the justice or injustice 
of an action does not affect the honour. He clearly means a 
universally accepted opinion of power, and cites the characters 
of the pagan deities. So, too, before times of civil order, it was 
held no dishonour to be a pirate, and even still, duels, though 
unlawful, are honourable, and will be till there be honour 
ordained for them that refuse. Farther on, he distinguishes 
Worthiness, (1) from worth, and (2) from merit, or the posses- 
sion of a particular ability or desert, which, as will be seen, 
presupposes a right to a thing, founded on a promise. 

Chapter XI. bears the title, Of the difference of Manners ; 
by manners being meant, not decency of behaviour and points 
of the ; small morals/ but the qualities of mankind that con- 
cern their living together in peace and unity. Felicity of 
life, as before, he pronounces to be a continual progress of 
desire, there being no finis ultimus nor summum bonum. The 
aim of all men is, therefore, not only to enjoy once and for an 
instant, but to assure for ever the way of future desire. Men 
differ in their way of doing so, from diversity of passion and 
their different degrees of knowledge. One thing he notes as 
common to all, a restless and perpetual desire of power after 
power, because the present power of living well depends on 
the acquisition of more. Competition inclines to conten- 
tion and war. The desire of ease, on the other hand, and 
fear of death or wounds, dispose to civil obedience. So also 
does desire of knowledge, implying, as it does, desire of leisure. 
Desire of praise and desire of fame after death dispose to 
laudable actions ; in such fame, there is a present delight 
from foresight of it, and of benefit redounding to posterity ; 
for pleasure to the sense is also pleasure in the imagination. 
Unrequitable benefits from an equal engender secret hatred, 
but from a superior, love ; the cheerful acceptation, called grat- 
itude, requiting the giver with honour. Requitable benefits, 
even from equals or inferiors, dispose to love ; for hence 



548 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — HOBBES. 

arises emulation in benefiting — ' the most noble and profitable 
contention possible, wherein the victor is pleased with his 
victory, and the other revenged by confessing it.' He passes 
under review other dispositions, such as fear of oppression, 
vain- glory, ambition, pusillanimity, frugality, &c, with re- 
ference to the course of conduct they prompt to. Then he 
comes to a favourite subject, the mistaken courses wherein to 
men fall that are ignorant of natural causes and the proper 
signification of words. The effect of ignorance of the causes 
of right, equity, law, and justice, is to make custom and 
example the rule of actions, as with children, or to induce 
the setting of custom against reason, and reason against 
custom, whereby the doctrine of right and wrong is per- 
petually disputed, both by the pen, and by the sword. Again, 
taking up ignorance of the laws of nature, he is led on to the 
subject of natural Religion, and devotes also the whole of 
Chapter XII. to Religion and kindred topics. 

In Chapter XIII., he deals with the natural condition of 
Mankind, as concerning their Felicity and Misery. AH men, 
he says, are by nature equal. Differences there are in the 
faculties of body and mind, but, when all is taken together, 
not great enough to establish a steady superiority of one over 
another. Besides even more than in strength, men are equal 
in prudence, which is but experience that comes to all. People 
indeed generally believe that others are not so wise as them- 
selves, but ' there is not ordinarily a greater sign of equal 
distribution of anything than that every person is contented 
with his share.' 

Of this equality of ability, the consequence is that two 
men desiring the exclusive possession of the same thing, 
whether for their own conservation or for delectation, will 
become enemies and seek to destroy each other. In such a 
case, it will be natural for any man to seek to secure himself 
by anticipating others in the use of force or wiles ; and, because 
some will not be content with merely securing themselves, 
others, who would be content, will be driven to take the offen- 
sive for mere self-conservation. Moreover, men will be dis- 
pleased at being valued by others less highly than by them- 
selves, and will use force to extort respect. 

Thus, he finds three principal causes of quarrel in the 
nature of man — competition, diffidence (distrust), and glory, 
making men invade for gain, for safety, and for reputation. 
Men will accordingly, in the absence of any power to keep 
them in awe, be in a constant state of war ; by which is meant, 



MISEEIES OF THE STA.TE OF NATURE. 549 

not actual fighting, but the known disposition thereto, and 
no assurance to the contrary. 

He proceeds to draw a very dismal picture of the results 
of this state of enmity of man against man — no industry, 
no agriculture, no arts, no society, and so forth, but only 
fear and danger of violent death, and life solitary, poor, 
nasty, brutish, and short. To those that doubt the truth of 
such an i inference made from the passions/ and desire the 
confirmation of experience, he cites the wearing of arms and 
locking of doors, &c, as actions that accuse mankind as much 
as any words of his. Besides, it is not really to accuse man's 
nature ; for the desires and passions are in themselves no sin, 
nor the actions proceeding from them, until a law is made 
against them. He seeks further evidence of an original con- 
dition of war, in the actual state of American savages, with 
no government at all, but only a concord of small families, 
depending on natural lust ; also in the known horrors of a 
civil war, when there is no common power to fear: and, 
finally, in the constant hostile attitude of different governments. 

In the state of natural war, the notions of right and wrong, 
justice and injustice, have no place, there being no law; and 
there is no law, because there is no common power. Force 
and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice is no 
faculty of body and mind like sense and passion, but only a 
quality relating to men in society. Then adding a last touch 
to the description of the state of nature, — by saying of pro- 
perty, that ' only that is every man's that he can get, and for so 
long as he can keep it,' — he opens up, at the close of the 
chapter, a new prospect by allowing a possibility to come out 
of so evil a condition. The possibility consists partly in 
the passions that incline to peace — viz., fear of death, desire 
of things necessary to commodious living, and hope by in- 
dustry to obtain them ; partly in reason, which suggests con- 
venient articles of peace and agreement, otherwise called the 
Laws of Nature. 

The first and second Natural Laws, and the subject of 
contracts, take up Chap. XIV. First comes a definition of 
Jus Naturale or Right of Nature — the liberty each man has 
of using his own power, as he will himself, for the preserva- 
tion of his own nature or life. Liberty properly means the 
absence of external impediments ; now a man may externally be 
hindered from doing all he would, but not from using what 
power is left him, according to His best reason and judgment. 
A Law of Nature, lex naturalir, is defined, a general rule, 



550 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— HOBBES. 

found out by reason, forbidding a man to do what directly or 
indirectly is destructive of his life, or to omit what he thinks 
may best preserve it. Right and Law, though generally con- 
founded, are exactly opposed, Right being liberty, and Law 
obligation. 

In the natural state of war, every man, being governed 
by his own reason, has a right to everything, even to 
another's body. But because thus no man's life is secure, he 
finds the First and fundamental law of nature, or general rule 
of reason, to be to seek peace and follow it, if possible : fail- 
ing which, we may defend ourselves by all the means we 
can. Here the law being ' to endeavour peace,' from this follows 
the Second law, that a man be willing, when others are so too, 
as far forth as for peace and self-defence he shall think it 
necessary, to lay down this right to all things ; and be con- 
tented with so much liberty against other men as he would 
allow other men against himself. This is the same as the 
Gospel precept, Do to others, &c. 

Laying down one's right to anything is divesting one's 
self of the liberty of hindering another in the exercise of his 
own original right to the same. The right is renounced, 
when a man cares not for whose benefit ; transferred, when 
intended to benefit some certain person or persons. In either 
case the man is obliged or bound not to hinder* those, in whose 
favour the right is abandoned, from the benefit of it ; it is his 
duty not to make void his own voluntary act, and if he does, 
it is injustice or injury, because he acts now sine Jure, Such 
conduct Hobbes likens to an intellectual absurdity or self- 
contradiction. Voluntary signs to be employed in abandon- 
ing a right, are words and actions, separately or together : 
but in all bonds, the strength comes not from their own 
nature, but from the fear of evil resulting from their rupture. 

He concludes that not all rights are alienable, for the 
reason that the abandonment, being a voluntary act, must 
have for its object some good to the person that abandons his 
right. A man, for instance, cannot lay down the right to 
defend his life ; to use words or other signs for that purpose, 
would be to despoil himself of the end — security of life and 
person — for which those signs were intended. 

Contract is the mutual transferring of right, and with this 
idea he connects a great deal. First, he distinguishes trans- 
ference of right to a thing, and transference of the thing 
itself. A contract fulfilled by one party, but left on trust to 
be fulfilled by the other, is called the Covenant of this other, 



CONTRACT. — MERIT. 551 

(a distinctioD he afterwards drops), and leaves room for the 
keeping or violation of faith. To contract he opposes gift, 
free-gift j or grace, where there is do mutual transference of 
right, but one party transfers in the hope of gaining friend- 
ship or service from another, or the reputation of charity and 
magnanimity, or deliverance from the merited pain of com- 
passion, or reward in heaven. 

There follow remarks on signs of contract, as either ex- 
press or by inference, and a distinction between free-gift as 
made by words of the present or past, and contract as made 
by words past, present, or future ; wherefore, in contracts like 
buying and selling, a promise amounts to a covenant, and is 
obligatory. 

The idea of Merit is thus explained. Of two contracting 
parties, the one that has first performed merits what he is to 
receive by the other's performance, or has it as due. Even 
the person that wins a prize, offered by free-gift to many, 
merits it. But, whereas, in contract, I merit by virtue of my 
own power and the other contractor's need, in the case of the 
gift, I merit only by the benignity of the giver, and to the 
extent that, when he has given it, it shall be mine rather than 
another's. This distinction he believes to coincide with the 
scholastic separation of meritum congrui and merikom condigni. 

He adds many more particulars in regard to covenants 
made on mutual trust. They are void in the state of nature, 
upon any reasonable suspicion; but when there is a common 
power to compel observance, and thus no more room for fear, 
they are valid. Even when fear makes them invalid it must 
have arisen after they were made, else it should have kept 
them from being made. Transference of a right implies 
transference, as far as may be, of the means to its enjoyment. 
With beasts there is no covenant, because no proper mutual 
understanding. With God also none, except through special 
revelation or with his lieutenant in his name. Anything 
vowed contrary to the law of nature is vowed in vain ; if the 
thing vowed is commanded by the law of nature, the law, 
not the vow, binds. Covenants are of things possible and 
future. Men are freed from them by performance, or for- 
giveness, which is restitution of liberty. He pronounces 
covenants extorted by fear to be binding alike in the state of 
mere nature and in commonwealths, if once entered into. 
A former covenant makes void a later. Any covenant not 
to defend one's self from force by force is always void ; 
as said above, there is no transference possible of right to 



552 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— HOBBES. 

defend one's self from death, wounds, imprisonment, &c. So 
no man is obliged to accuse himself, or generally to give tes- 
timony where from the nature of the case it may be presumed 
to be corrupted. Accusation upon torture is not to be reputed 
as testimony. At the close he remarks upon oaths. He finds 
in human nature two imaginable helps to strengthen the force 
of words, otherwise too weak to insure the performance of 
covenants. One of these — pride in appearing not to need to 
break one's word, he supposes too rare to be presumed upon. 
The other j fear, has reference either to power of spirits invisi- 
ble, or of men. In the state of nature, it is the first kind of 
fear — a man's religion — that keeps him to his promises. An 
oath is therefore swearing to perform by the God a man fears. 
But to the obligation itself it adds nothing. 

Of the other Laws of Nature, treated in Chap. XV., the 
third, that men perform their covenants made, opens up the 
discussion of Justice, Till rights have been transferred and 
covenants made there is no justice or injustice ; injustice is no 
other than the non-performance of covenants. Further, justice 
(and also property) begins only where a regular coercive power 
is constituted, because otherwise there is cause for fear, and 
fear, as has been seen, makes covenants invalid. Even the 
scholastic definition of justice recognizes as much ; for there 
can be no constant will of giving to every man his own, when, 
as in the state of nature, there is no own. He argues at 
length against the idea that justice, i.e., the keeping of cove- 
nants, is contrary to reason ; repelling three different argu- 
ments. (1) He demonstrates that it cannot be reasonable to 
break or keep covenants according to benefit supposed to be 
gained in each case, because this would be a subversion of the 
principles whereon society is founded, and must end by de- 
priving the individual of its benefits, whereby he would be left 
perfectly helpless. (2) He considers it frivolous to talk of 
securing the happiness of heaven by any kind of injustice, 
when there is but one possible way of attaining it, viz., the 
keeping of covenants. (3) He warns men (he means his con- 
temporaries) against resorting to the mode of injustice known 
as rebellion to gain sovereignty, from the hopelessness of 
gaining it and the uncertainty of keeping it. Hence he con- 
cludes that justice is a rule of reason, the keeping of cove- 
nants being the surest way to preserve our life, and therefore 
a law of nature. He rejects the notion that laws of nature 
are to be supposed conducive, not to the preservation of life 
,on earth, but to the attainment of eternal felicity ; whereto 



justice. 553 

such breach of covenant as rebellion may sometimes be supposed 
a means. For that, the knowledge of the future life is too un- 
certain. Finally, he consistently holds that faith is to be kept 
with heretics and with all that it has once been pledged to. 

He goes on to distinguish between justice of men or 
manners, and justice of actions ; whereby in the one case men 
are just or righteous, and in the other, guiltless. After making 
the common observation that single inconsistent acts do not 
destroy a character for justice or injustice, he has this : ' That 
which gives to human actions the relish of justice, is a certain 
nobleness or gallantness of courage rarely found, by which a 
man scorns to be beholden for the contentment of his life to 
fraud, or breach of promise. 7 Then he shows the difference 
between injustice, injury, and damage ; asserts that nothing 
done to a man with his consent can be injury ; and, rejecting 
the common mode of distinguishing between commutative and 
distributive justice, calls the first the justice of a con- 
tractor, and the other an improper name for just distribution, 
or the justice of an arbitrator, i.e., the act of defining what is 
just — equivalent to equity, which is itself a law of nature. 

The rest of the laws follow in swift succession. The 4th 
recommends Gratitude^ which depends on antecedent grace 
instead of covenant. Free-gift being voluntary, i.e., done 
with intention of good to one's self, there will be an end to 
benevolence and mutual help, unless gratitude is given as 
compensation. 

The 5th enjoins Complaisance; a disposition in men not 
to seek superfluities that to others are necessaries. Such 
men are sociable. 

The 6th enjoins Pardon upon repentance, with a view 
(like the last) to peace. 

The 7th enjoins that punishment is to be only for cor- 
rection of the offender and direction of others ; i.e., for profit 
and example, not for ' glorying in the hurt of another, tend- 
ing to no end.' Against Cruelty. 

The 8th is against Contumely, as provocative of dispeace. 

The 9th is against Pride, and enjoins the acknowledgment 
of the equality of all men by nature. He is here very sarcastic 
against Aristotle, and asserts, in opposition to him, that all 
inequality of men arises from consent* 

The 10th is, in like manner, against Arrogance, and in 
favour of Modesty. Men, in entering into peace, are to reserve 
no rights but such as they are willing shall be reserved by 
others. * 



554 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — HOBBES. 

The 11th enjoins Equity ; the disposition, in a man trusted 
to judge, to distribute equally to each man what in reason 
belongs to him. Partiality f deters men from the use of judges 
and arbitrators/ and is a cause of war. 

The 12th enjoins the common, or the proportionable, use 
of things that cannot be distributed. 

The 13th enjoins the resort to lot, when separate or com- 
mon enjoyment is not possible; the 14th provides also for 
natural lot, meaning first possession or primogeniture. 
The 15th demands safe conduct for mediators. 
The 16th requires that parties at controversy shall submit 
their right to arbitration. 

The 17th forbids a man to be his own judge; the 18th, 
any interested person to be judge. 

The 19th requires a resort to witnesses in a matter of fact, 
as between two contending parties. 

This list of the laws of nature is only slightly varied in the 
other works. He enumerates none but those that concern 
the doctrine of Civil Society, passing over things like Intem- 
perance, that are also forbidden by the law of nature because 
destructive of particular men. All the laws are summed up 
in the one expression : Do not that to another, which thou 
wouldest not have done to thyself. 

The laws of nature he regards as always binding in foro 
interno, to the extent of its being desired they should take 
place ; but in foro externo, only when there is security. As 
binding in foro interno, they can be broken even by an act 
according with them, if the purpose of it was against them. 
They are immutable and eternal ; ' injustice, ingratitude, &c, 
can never be made lawful/ for war cannot preserve life, nor 
peace destroy it. Their fulfilment is easy, as requiring only 
an unfeigned and constant endeavour. 

Of these laws the science is true moral philosophy, i.e., the 
science of good and evil in the society of mankind. Good 
and evil vary much from man to man, and even in the same 
man ; but while private appetite is the measure of good and 
evil in the condition of nature, all allow that peace is good, 
and that justice, gratitude, &c, as the way or means to peace, 
are also good, that is to say, moral virtues. The true moral 
philosophy, in regarding them as laws of nature, places their 
goodness in their being the means of peaceable, comfortable, 
and sociable living ; not, as is commonly done, in a mediocrity 
of passions, ' as if not the cause, but the degree of daring, 
made fortitude.' 



GENERAL SUMMARY. 555 

His last remark is. that these dictates of reason are 
improperly called laws, because - law, properly, is the word 
of him that by right hath command over others.' But when 
considered not as mere conclusions or theorems concerning 
the means of conservation and defence, but as delivered in 
the word of God, that by right commands all, then they are 
properly called laws. 

Chapter XVI., closing the whole first part of the Leviathan, 
is of Persons, Authors, and Things Personated. The defini- 
tions and distinctions contained in it add nothing of direct 
ethical importance to the foregoing, though needed for the 
discussion of ' Commonwealth, ' to which he passes. The 
chief points under thi3 second great head are taken into the 
summary. 

The views of Hobbes can be only inadequately summarized. 

I. — The Standard, to men living in society, is the Law of 
the State. This is Self-interest or individual Utility, masked 
as regard for Established Order ; for, as he holds, under any 
kind of government there is more Security and Commodity of 
life than in the State of Nature. In. the Natural Condition, 
Self-interest, of course, is the Standard ; but not without re- 
sponsibility to God, in case it is not sought, as far as other 
men will allow, by the practice of the dictates of Reason or 
laws of Nature. 

II. — His Psychology of Ethics is to be studied in the detail. 
Whether in the natural or in the social state, the Moral Faculty, 
to correspond with the Standard, is the general power of Reason, 
comprehending the aims of the Individual or Society, and 
attending to the laws of Nature or the laws of the State, in 
the one case or in the other respectively. 

On the question of the Will, his views have been given at 
length. 

Disinterested Sentiment is, in origin, self- regarding ; for, 
pitying others, we imagine the like calamity befalling our- 
selves. In one place, he seems to say, that the Sentiment of 
Power is also involved. It is the great defect of his system 
that he takes so little account of the Social affections, whether 
natural or acquired. 

III. — His Theory of Happiness, or the Summum Bonum, 
would follow from his analysis of the Feelings and Will. But 
Felicity being a continual progress in desire, and consisting 
less in present enjoyment than in assuring the way of future 
desire, the chief element in it is the Sense of Power. 

IV. — A Moral Code is minutely detailed under the name of 



556 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— -CUMBERLAND. 

Laws of Nature, in force in the Natural State under Divine 
Sanction. It inculcates all the common virtues, and makes 
little or no departure from the usually received maxims. 

V. — The relation of Ethics to Politics is the closest imagin- 
able. Not even Society, as commonly understood, but only 
the established civil authority, is the source of rules of con- 
duct. In the civil (which to Hobbes is the only meaning of 
the social) state, the laws of nature are superseded, by being 
supposed taken up into, the laws of the Sovereign Power. 

VI. — As regards Religion, he affirms the coincidence of his 
reasoned deduction of the laws of Nature with the precepts of 
Revelation. He makes a mild use of the sanctions of a Future 
Life to enforce the laws of Nature, and to give additional 
support to the commands of the sovereign that take the place 
of these in the social state. 

Among the numberless replies, called forth by the bold 
speculations of Hobbes, were some works of independent 
ethical importance ; in particular, the treatises of Cumberland, 
Cudworth, and Clarke. Cumberland stands by himself; Cud- 
worth and Clarke, agreeing in some respects, are commonly 
called the Rational moralists, along with Wollaston and Price 
(who fall to be noticed later). 

RICHARD CUMBERLAND. [1632-1718.] 

Cumberland's Latin work, De Legibus Natural disquisitio 
philosojohica contra Hobbium instituta, appeared in 1672. The 
book is important as a distinctly philosophical disquisition, 
but its extraordinarily discursive character renders impossible 
anything like analysis. His chief points will be presented in 
a fuller summary than usual. 

I. — The Standard of Moral Good is given in the laws of 
Nature, which may all be summed up in one great Law — 
Benevolence to all rational agents, or the endeavour to the 
utmost of our power to promote the common good of all. His 
theory is hardly to be distinguished from the Greatest Happi- 
ness principle ; unless it might be represented as putting for- 
ward still more prominently the search for Individual Happi- 
ness, with a fixed assumption that this is best secured through 
the promotion of the general good. No action, he declares, 
can be called i morally good that does not in its own nature 
contribute somewhat to the happiness of men.' The speciality 
of his view is his professing not to make an induction as 
regards the character of actions from the observation of their 
effects, but to deduce the propriety of (benevolent) actions 



PSYCHOLOGY OF ETHICS. 557 

from the consideration of the character and position of rational 
agents in nature. Rules of conduct, all directed to the pro- 
motion of the Happiness of rational agents, may thus be found 
in the form of propositions impressed upon the mind by the 
Nature of Things ; and these are then interpreted to be laws 
of Nature (summed up in the one great Law), promulgated 
by God with the natural effects of actions as Sanctions of 
Reward and Punishment to enforce them. 

II. — His Psychology of Ethics may be reduced to the fol- 
lowing heads. * _ 

1. The Faculty is the Reason, apprehending the exact 
Nature of Things, and determining accordingly the modes of 
action that are best suited to promote the happiness of 
rational agents. 

2. Of the Faculty, under the name of Conscience, he gives 
this description : ' The mind is conscious to itself of all its own 
actions, and both can, and often does, observe what counsels pro- 
duced them; it naturally sits a judge upon its own actions, and 
thence procures to itself either tranquillity and joy, or anxiety 
and sorrow.' The principal design of his whole book is to 
show ' how this power of the mind, either by itself, or excited 
by external objects, forms certain universal practical proposi- 
tions, which give us a more distinct idea of the happiness of 
mankind, and pronounces by what actions of ours, in all 
variety of circumstances, that happiness may most effect- 
ually be obtained.' [Conscience is thus only Reason, or the 
knowing faculty in general, as specially concerned about 
actions in their effect upon happiness; it rarely takes the 
place of the more general term.] 

3. He expressly leaves aside the supposition that we have 
innate ideas of the laws of Nature whereby conduct is to be 
guided, or of the matters that they are conversant about. 
He has not, he says, been so happy as to learn the laws of 
Nature by so short a way, and thinks it ill-advised to build 
the doctrine of natural religion and morality upon a hypothesis 
that has been rejected by the generality of philosophers, as 
well heathen as Christian, and can never be proved against 
the Epicureans, with whom lies his chief controversy. Yet he 
declines to oppose the doctrine of innate ideas, because it looks 
with a friendly eye upon piety and morality ; and perhaps it 
may be the case, that such ideas are both born with us and 
afterwards impressed upon us from without. 

4. Will, he defines as ' the consent of the mind with the 
judgment of the understanding, concerning things agreeing 



558 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — CUMBERLAND. 

among themselves.' Although, therefore, he supposes that 
nothing but Good and Evil can determine the will, and that 
the will is even necessarily determined to seek the one and 
flee the other, he escapes the conclusion that the will is moved 
only by private good, by accepting the implication of private 
with common good as the fixed judgment of the understand- 
ing or right reason. 

5. He argues against the resolution of all Benevolence 
into self-seeking, and thus claims for man a principle of dis- 
interested action. But what he is far more concerned to prove 
is, that benevolence of all to all accords best with the whole 
frame of nature, stands forth with perfect evidence, upon a 
rational apprehension of the universe, as the great Law of 
Nature, and is the most effectual means of promoting the 
happiness of individuals, viz., through the happiness of all. 

III. — Happiness is given as connected with the most full 
and constant exercise of all our powers, about the best and 
greatest objects and effects that are adequate and proportional 
to them ; as consisting in the enlargement or perfection of the 
faculties of any one thing or several. Here, and in his protest 
against Hobbes's taking affection and desire, instead of 
Beason, as the measure of the goodness of things, may be 
seen in what way he passes from the conception of Individual, 
to the notion of Common Good, as the end of action. Beason 
affirms the common good to be more essentially connected 
with the perfection of man than any pursuit of private advan- 
tage. Still there is no disposition in him to sacrifice private 
to the common good : he declares that no man is called on to 
promote the common good beyond his ability, and attaches no 
meaning to the general good beyond the special good of all the 
particular rational agents in their respective places, from God 
(to whom he ventures to ascribe a Tranquillity, Joy, or Compla- 
cency) downwards. The happiness of men he considers as Xw- 
temal, arising immediately from the vigorous exercise of the 
faculties about their proper and noblest objects ; and External, 
the mediate advantages procurable from God and men by a 
course of benevolent action. 

IV. — His Moral Code is arrived at by a somewhat elabo- 
rate deduction from the great Law of Nature enjoining Benevo- 
lence or Promotion of the Common Good of all rational beings. 

This Common Good comprehends the Honour of God, and 
the Good or Happiness of Men, as Nations, Families, and 
Individuals. 

The actions that promote this Common Good, are Acts 



MORAL CODE. 559 

either of the understanding, or of the will and affections, or of 
the body as determined by the will. From this he finds that 
Prudence (including Constancy of Mind and Moderation) is 
enjoined in the Understanding, and, in the Will, Universal 
Benevolence (making, with Prudence, Equity), Government of 
the Passions, and the Special Laws of Nature — Innocence, Self- 
denial, Gratitude, 8fc. 

This he gets from the consideration of what is contained 
in the general Law of Nature. But the obligation to the 
various moral virtues does not appear, until he has shown that 
the Law of Nature, for procuring the Common Happiness of 
all, suggests a natural law of Universal Justice, commanding to 
make and preserve a division of Rights, i.e., giving to particular 
persons Property or Dominion over things and persons neces- 
sary to their Happiness. There are thus Rights of God (to 
Honour, Glory, &c.) and Rights of Men (to have those advan- 
tages continued to them whereby they may preserve and per- 
fect themselves, and be useful to all others). 

For the same reason that Rights of particular persons 
are fixed and preserved, viz., that the common good of all 
should be promoted by every one, — two Obligations are laid 
upon all. 

(1) Of Giving : We are to contribute to others such a share 
of the things committed to our trust, as may not destroy the 
part that is necessary to our own happiness. Hence are obli- 
gatory the virtues (a) in regard to Gifts, Liberality, Generosity, 
Compassion, &c; (b) in regard to Common Conversation or 
Intercourse, Gravity and Gourteousness, Veracity, Faith, 
Urbanity, &c. 

(2) Of Receiving : We are to reserve to ourselves such 
use of our own, as may be most advantageous to, or at least 
consistent with, the good of others. Hence the obligation oi 
the virtues pertaining to the various branches of a limited 
Self-Love, (a) with regard to our essential parts, viz., 
Mind and Body — Temperance in the natural desires concerned 
in the preservation of the individual and the species ; (h) with 
regard to goods of fortune — Modesty, Humility, and Mag- 
nanimity. 

V. — He connects Politics with Ethics, by finding, in the 
establishment of civil government, a more effectual means of 
promoting the common happiness according to the Law of 
Nature, than in any equal division of things. But the Law 
of Nature, he declares, being before the civil laws, and con- 
taining the ground of their obligation, can never be superseded 



560 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — CUDWOKTH. 

by these. Practically, however, the difference between him 
and Hobbes comes to very little ; he recognizes no kind of 
earthly check upon the action of the civil power. 

VI. — -With reference to Religion, he professes to abstain 
entirely from theological questions, and does abstain from 
mixing up the doctrines of Revelation. But he attaches a 
distinctly divine authority to his moral rules, and supplements 
earthly by supernatural sanctions. 

RALPH CUDWORTH. [1617-88.] 

Cudworth's Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Mo- 
rality, did not appear until 1731, more than forty years after 
his death. Having in a former work (* Intellectual system 
of the Universe') contended against the 'Atheistical Fate ' of 
Epicurus and others, he here attacks the ' Theologick Fate ' 
(the arbitrarily omnipotent Deity) of Hobbes, charging him 
with reviving exploded opinions of Protagoras and the ancient 
Greeks, that take away the essential and eternal discrimination 
of moral good and evil, of just and unjust. 

After piling up, out of the store of his classical and 
scholastic erudition, a great mass of testimony regarding all 
who had ever founded distinctions of Right and Wrong upon 
mere arbitrary disposition, whether of God or the State of men 
in general, he shadows forth his own view. Moral Good and 
Evil, Just and Unjust, Honest and Dishonest (if they be not 
mere names without any signification, or names for nothing 
else but Willed or Commanded, but have a reality in respect of 
the persons obliged to do and to avoid them), cannot possibly 
be arbitrary things, made by Will without nature ; because 
it is universally true that Things are what they are not by 
Will, but by nature. As it is the nature of a triangle to have 
three angles equal to two right angles, so it is the nature of 
'good things' to have the nature of goodness, and things just 
the nature of justice ; and Omnipotence is no more able to 
make a thing good without the fixed nature of goodness, than 
to make a triangular body without the properties of a triangle, 
or two things like or equal, without the natures of Likeness 
and Equality. The Will of God is the supreme efficient cause 
of all things, but not the formal cause of anything besides 
itself. Nor is this to be understood as at all derogating from 
God's perfection ; to make natural justice and right indepen- 
dent of his will is merely to set his Wisdom, which is a rule 
or measure, above his Will, which is something indeterminate, 
but essentially regulable and measureable; and if it be the 



ETEENAL AND IMMUTABLE VERITIES. 561 

case that above even his wisdom, and determining it in turn, 
stands his Infinite Goodness, the greatest perfection of his 
will must lie in its being thus twice determined. 

By far the largest part of Cudworth's treatise consists of 
a general metaphysical argument to establish the indepen- 
dence of the mind's faculty of Knowledge, with reference to 
Sense and Experience. In Sense, according to the doctrine 
of the old 4 Atomical philosophy ! (of Democritus, Protagoras, 
&c. — but he thinks it must be referred back to Moses himself !), 
he sees nothing but fancies excited in us by local motions in 
the organs, taken on from ' the motion of particles \ that con- 
stitute ' the whole world.' All the more, therefore, must there 
exist a superior power of Intellection and Knowledge of a 
different nature from sense, a power not terminating in mere 
seeming and appearance only, but in the reality of things, and 
reaching to the comprehension of what really and abso- 
lutely is ; whose objects are the immutable and eternal essences 
and natures of things, and their unchangeable relations to one 
another. These Rationes or Verities of things are intelligible 
only ; are all comprehended in the eternal mind or intellect of 
the Deity, and from Him derived to our 4 particular intellects.' 
They are neither arbitrary nor phantastical — neither alterable 
by Will nor changeable by Opinion. 

Such eternal and immutable Verities, then, the moral dis- 
tinctions of Good and Evil are, in the pauses of the general 
argument, declared to be. They, ' as they must have some 
certain natures which are the actions or souls of men/ are 
unalterable by Will or Opinion. c Modifications of Mind and 
Intellect,' they are as much more real and substantial things 
than Hard, Soft, Hot, and Cold, modifications of mere sense- 
less matter — and even so, on the principles of the atomical 
philosophy, dependent on the soul for their existence — as Mind 
itself stands prior in the order of nature to Matter. In the 
mind they are as ' anticipations of morality' springing up, not 
indeed > from certain rules or propositions arbitrarily printed 
on the soul as on a book,' but from some more inward and 
vital Principle in intellectual beings, as such whereby these 
have within themselves a natural determination to do some 
things and to avoid others. 

The only other ethical determinations made by Cud worth 
may thus be summarized : — Things called naturally Good and 
Due are such as the intellectual nature obliges to immediately, 
absolutely, and perpetually, and upon no condition of any 
voluntary action done or omitted intervening ; things jposi- 
36 



562 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — CLARKE. 

tively Good and Due are such as are in themselves indifferent, 
but the intellectual nature obliges to them accidentally or 
hypothetically, upon condition, in the case of a command, 
of some voluntary act of another person invested with lawful 
authority, or of one's self, in the case of a specific promise. 
In a positive command (as of the civil ruler), what obliges is 
only the intellectual nature of him that is commanded, in that 
he recognizes the lawful authority of him that commands, and 
so far determines and modifies his general duty of obedience 
as to do an action immaterial in itself for the sake of the for- 
mality of yielding obedience to lawfully constituted authority. 
So, in like manner, a specific promise, in itself immaterial and 
not enjoined by natural justice, is to be kept for the sake of 
the formality of keeping faith, which is enjoined. 

Cudworth's work, in which these are nearly all the ethical 
allusions, gives no scope for a summary under the various 
topics. 

I. — Specially excluding any such External Standard of 
moral Good as the arbitrary Will, either of God or the Sove- 
reign, he views it as a simple ultimate natural quality of 
actions or dispositions, as included among the verities of 
things, by the side of which the phenomena of Sense are 
unreal. 

II. — The general Intellectual Faculty cognizes the moral 
verities, which it contains within itself and brings rather than 
finds. 

III. — He does not touch upon Happiness; probably he 
would lean to asceticism. He sets up no moral code. 

IV. — Obligation to the Positive Civil Laws in matters in- 
different follows from the intellectual recognition of the esta- 
blished relation between ruler and subject. 

V. — Morality is not dependent upon the Deity in any 
other sense than the whole frame of things is. 

SAMUEL CLARKE. [1675-1729.] 

Clarke put together his two series of Boyle Lectures 
(preached 1704 and 1705) as C A Discourse, concerning the 
Being and Attributes of God, the Obligations of Natural 
Religion and the Truth and Certainty of the Christian 
Revelation/ in answer to Hobbes, Spinoza, &c. The burden 
of the ethical discussion falls under the head of the Obligations 
of Natural Religion, in the second series. 

He enounces this all-comprehensive proposition : i The 
same necessary and eternal different Relations that different 



FITNESSES AND UNFITNESSES OF THINGS. 563 

Things bear one to another, and the same consequent Fitness 
or Unfitness of the application of different things or different 
relations one to another, with regard to which the will of God 
always and necessarily does determine itself to choose to act 
only what is agreeable to Justice, Equity, Goodness, and 
Truth, in order to the welfare of the whole universe — ought 
likewise constantly to determine the Wills of all subordinate 
rational beings, to govern all their actions by the same rules, 
for the good of the public, in their respective stations. That 
is, these eternal and necessary differences of things make it 
fit and reasonable for creatures so to act ; they cause it to be 
their duty, or lay an obligation on them so to do ; even sepa- 
rate from the consideration of these Rules being the positive 
Will or Command of God, and also antecedent to any respect 
or regard, expectation or apprehension of any particular pri- 
vate and personal Advantage or Disadvantage, Reward or 
Punishment, either present or future, annexed either by 
natural consequence, or by positive appointment, to the prac- 
tising or neglecting of these rules.' In the explication of this, 
nearly his whole system is contained. 

His first concern is to impress the fact that there are 
necessary and eternal differences of ail things, and implied or 
consequent relations (proportions or disproportions) existing 
amongst them; and to bring under this general head the 
special case of differences of Persons (e.g., God and Man, Man 
and Fellow- man), for the sake of the implication that to 
different persons there belong peculiar Fitnesses and Unfitnesses 
of circumstances ; or, which is the same thing, that there 
arises necessarily amongst them a suitableness or unsuitable- 
ness of certain manners of Behaviour. The counter-proposi- 
tion that he contends against is, that, the relations among 
persons depend upon positive constitution of some kind, instead 
of being founded unchangeably in the nature and reason of 
things. 

Next he shows how, in the rational or intellectual recogni- 
tion of naturally existent relations amongst things (he always 
means persons chiefly), there is contained an obligation,, 
When God, in his Omniscience and absolute freedom from 
error, is found determining his Will always according to this 
eternal reason of things, it is very unreasonable and blame- 
worthy in the intelligent creatures whom he has made so far 
like himself, not to govern their actions by the same eternal 
rule of Reason, but to suffer themselves to depart from it 
through negligent misunderstanding or wilful passion. Herein 



564 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — CLARKE. 

lies obligation : a man ought to act according to the Law of 
Reason, because he can as little refrain from assenting to the 
reasonableness and fitness of guiding his actions by it, as refuse 
his assent to a geometrical demonstration when he under- 
stands the terms. The original obligation of all is the eternal 
Reason of Things ; the sanction of Rewards and Punishments 
(though ' truly the most effectual means of keeping creatures 
in their duty') is only a secondary and additional obligation. 
Proof of his position he finds in men's judgment of their own 
actions, better still in their judgments of others' actions, best 
of all in their judgment of injuries inflicted on themselves. 
Nor does any objection hold from the ignorance of savages in 
matters of morality : they are equally ignorant of the plainest 
mathematical truths ; the need of instruction does not take 
away the necessary difference of moral Good and Evil, any 
more than it takes away the necessary proportions of numbers. 

He, then, instead of deducing all our several duties as he 
might, contents himself with mentioning the three great 
branches of them, (a) Duties in respect of God, consisting 
of sentiments and acts (Veneration, Love, Worship, &c.) called 
forth by the consideration of his attributes, and having a cha- 
racter of Fitness far beyond any that is visible in applying 
equal geometrical figures to one another, (b) Duties in respect 
of our Fellow-creatures : (1) Justice and Equity, the doing as 
we would be done by. Iniquity is the very same in Action, 
as Falsity or Contradiction in Theory ; what makes the one 
absurd makes the other unreasonable ; l it would be impossible 
for men not to be as much (!) ashamed of doing Iniquity, as 
they are of believing Contradictions; 9 (2) Universal Love or 
Benevolence, the promoting the welfare or happiness of all, 
which is obligatory on various grounds : the Good being the 
fit and reasonable, the greatest Good is the most fit and reason- 
able ; by this God's action is determined, and so ought ours ; 
no Duty affords a more ample pleasure ; besides having a 
'certain natural affection' for those most closely connected 
with us, we desire to multiply affinities, which means to found 
societv, for the sake of the more comfortable life that mutual 
good offices bring. [This is a very confused deduction of an 
obligation. - ] (c) Duties in respect to our Selves, viz., self- 
preservation, temperance, contentment, &c; for not being authors 
of our being, we have no just power or authority to take it 
away directly, or, by abuse of our faculties, indirectly. 

After expatiating in a rhetorical strain on the eternal, 
universal, and absolutely unchangeable character of the law 



MORALITY INDEPENDENT OF THE DEITY. 565 

of Nature or Right Reason, he specifies the sense wherein 
the eternal moral obligations are independent of the will of 
God himself; it comes to this, that, although God makes all 
things and the relations between them, nothing is holy and 
good because he commands it, but he commands it because it 
is holy and good. Finally, he expounds the relation of Reward 
and Punishment to the law of Nature ; the obligation of it is 
before and distinct from these ; but, while full of admiration 
for the Stoical idea of the self-sufficiency of virtue, he is 
constrained to add that 'men never will generally, and indeed 
'tis not very reasonably to be expected they should, part with 
all the comforts of life, and even life itself, without any expecta- 
tion of a future recompense.' The 'manifold absurdities' of 
Hobbes being first exposed, he accordingly returns, in pur- 
suance of the theological argument of his Lectures, to show 
that the eternal moral obligations, founded on the natural 
differences of things, are at the same time the express will and 
command of God to all rational creatures, and must neces- 
sarily and certainly be attended with Rewards and Punish- 
ments in a future state. 

The summary of Clarke's views might stand thus : — 

I. — The Standaed is a certain Fitness of action between 
persons, implicated in their nature as much as any fixed 
proportions between numbers or other relation among things. 
Except in such an expression as this, moral good admits of no 
kind of external reference. 

II. — There is very little Psychology involved. The 
Faculty is the Reason ; its action a case of mere intellectual 
apprehension. The element of Feeling is nearly excluded. 
Disinterested sentiment is so minor a point as to call forth 
only the passing allusion to ' a certain natural affection.' 

III. — Happiness is not considered except in a vague refer- 
ence to good public and private as involved with Fit and 
Unfit action. 

IV. — His account of Duties is remarkable only for the con- 
sistency of his attempt to find parallels for each amongst 
intellectual relations. The climax intended in the assimila- 
tion of Injustice to Contradictions is a very anti- climax ; if 
people were only 'as mucti ashamed of doing injustice as of 
believing contradictions, the moral order of the world would 
be poorly provided for. 

V. — The relation of Ethics to Politics is hardly touched. 
Society is born of the desire to multiply affinities through 
mutual interchange of good offices. 



566 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— LOCKE. 

VI. — His Ethical disquisition is only part of a Theological 
argument ; and this helps to explain his assertion of the Inde- 
pendence as well as of the Insufficiency of Morality. The 
final outcome of the discussion is that Morality needs the 
support of Revelation. But, to get from this an argument for 
the truth of Revelation, it is necessary that morality should 
have an independent foundation in the nature of things, apart 
from any direct divine appointment. 

William Wollaston (1659-1724), author of the ' Religion 
of Nature Delineated,' is usually put into the same class of 
moralists with Clarke. With him, a had action (whether of 
commission or omission) contains the denial of a true pro- 
position. Truth can be denied by actions as well as by words. 
Thus, the violation of a contract is the denial by an action 
that the contract has been concluded. Robbing a traveller 
is the denial that what you take from him is his. An action 
that denies one or more true propositions cannot be good, 
and is necessarily bad. A good action is one whose omission 
would be bad or whose contrary is bad, in the above sense. 
An indifferent action is one that can be omitted or done with- 
out contradicting any truth. Reason, the judge of what is 
true and false, is the only faculty concerned ; but, at the same 
time, Wollaston makes large reference to the subject of Hap- 
piness, finding it to consist in an excess of pleasures as com- 
pared with pains. He holds that his doctrine is in conformity 
with all the facts. It affirms a progressive morality, that 
keeps pace with and depend upon the progress of Science. 
It can explain errors in morals as distinct from vice. An 
error is the affirmation by an action of a false proposition, 
thought to be true ; the action is bad, but the agent is 
innocent. 

JOHN LOCKE. [1632-1704] 

Locke did not apply himself to the consecutive evolution 
of an Ethical theory ; whence his views, although on the 
y/hole sufficiently unmistakeable, are not always reconcileable 
with one another. 

In Book I. of the ' Essay on the Understanding ' he devotes 
himself to the refutation of Innate Ideas, whether Speculative 
or Practical. Chap. III. is on the alleged Innate Practical 
Principles, or rules of Right and Wrong. The objections 
urged against these Principles have scarcely been added to. 
and have never been answered. We shall endeavour to indi- 
cate the heads of the reasoning. 



OBJECTIONS TO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. 567 

1. The Innate Practical Principles are for the most part 
not self-evident ; they are, in this respect, not on an eqnal 
footing with the Speculative Principles whose innate origin 
is also disputed. They require reasoning and explanation in 
order to be understood. Many men are ignorant of them, 
while others assent to them slowly, if they do assent to them ; 
all which is at variance with their being innate. 

2. There is no Practical Principle universally received 
among mankind. All that can be said of Justice is that most 
men agree to recognize it. It is vain to allege of confederacies 
of thieves, that they keep faith with one another ; for this 
keeping of faith is merely for their own convenience. We 
cannot call that a sense of Justice which merely binds a man 
to a certain number of his fellow- criminals, in order the more 
effectually to plunder and kill honest men. Instead of Justice, 
it is the essential condition of success in Injustice. 

If it be said in reply, that these men tacitly assent in their 
minds to what their practice contradicts, Locke answers, first, 
that men's actions must be held as the best interpreters of 
their thoughts ; and if many men's practices, and some men's 
open professions, have been opposed to these principles, we 
cannot conclude them to be Innate. Secondly, It is difficult 
for us to assent to Innate Practical Principles, ending only in 
contemplation. Such principles either influence our conduct, 
or they are nothing. There is no mistake as to the Innate 
principles of the desire of happiness, and aversion to misery ; 
these do not stop short in tacit assent, but urge every man's 
conduct every hour of his life. If there were anything cor- 
responding to these in the sense of Right and Wrong, we 
should have no dispute about them. 

3. There is no Moral rule, that may not have a reason 
demanded for it ; which ought not to be the case with any 
innate principle. That we should do as we would be done 
by, is the foundation of all morality, and yet, if proposed to 
any one for the first time, might not such an one, without 
absurdity, ask a reason why ? But this would imply that 
there is some deeper principle for it to repose upon, capable 
of being assigned as its motive ; that it is not ultimate, and 
therefore not innate. That men should observe compacts is 
a great and undeniable rule, yet, in this, a Christian would 
give as reason the command of God ; a Hobbist would say 
that the public requires it, and would punish for disobeying 
it ; and an old heathen philosopher would have urged that it 
was opposed to human virtue and perfection. 



568 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— LOCKE. 

Bound up with this consideration, is the circumstance that 
moral rules differ among men, according to their views of 
happiness. The existence of God, and our obedience to him, 
are manifest in many ways, and are the true ground of 
morality, seeing that only God can call to account every 
offender ; yet, from the union of virtue and public happiness, 
all men have recommended the practice of what is for their 
own obvious advantage. There is quite enough in this self- 
interest to cause moral rules to be enforced by men that care 
neither for the supreme Lawgiver, nor for the Hell ordained 
by him to punish transgressors. 

After all, these great principles of morality are more com- 
mended than practised. As to Conscience checking us in 
these breaches, making them fewer than they would otherwise 
be, men may arrive at such a conscience, or self-restraining 
sentiment, in other ways than by an innate endowment. Some 
men may come to assent to moral rules from a knowledge of 
their value as means to ends. Others may take up the same 
view as a part of their education. However the persuasion is 
come by, it will serve as a conscience ; which conscience is 
nothing else than our own opinion of the rectitude or pravity 
of our actions. 

How could men with serenity and confidence transgress 
rules stamped upon their inmost soul ? Look at the practices 
of nations civilized and uncivilized ; at the robberies, murders, 
rapes of an army sacking a town ; at the legalized usages of 
nations, the destruction of infants and of aged parents for 
personal convenience; cannibalism; the most monstrous forms 
of unchastity ; the fashionable murder named Duelling. Where 
are the innate principles of Justice, Piety, Gratitude, Equity, 
Chastity ? 

If we read History, and cast our glance over the world, 
we shall scarcely find any rule of Morality (excepting such as 
are necessary to hold society together, and these too with 
great limitations) but what is somewhere or other set aside, 
and an opposite established, by whole societies of men. Men 
may break a law without disowning it ; but it is inconceivable 
that a whole nation should publicly reject and renounce what 
every one of them, certainly and infallibly, knows to be a law. 
Whatever practical principle is innate, must be known to 
every one to be just and good. The generally allowed breach 
of any rule anywhere must be held to prove that it is not 
innate. If there be any rule having a fair claim to be im- 
printed by nature, it is the rule that Parents should preserve 



MORALITY TOO COMPLEX TO BE INNATE. 569 

and cherish their children. If snch a principle be innate, it 
must be found regulating practice everywhere ; or, at the 
lowest, it must be known and assented to. But it is very far 
from having been uniformly practised, even among en- 
lightened nations. And as to its being an innate truth, 
known to all men, that also is untrue. Indeed, the terms of 
it are not intelligible without other knowledge. The state- 
ment, ' it is the duty of parents to preserve their children,' 
cannot be understood without a Law ; a Law requires a Law- 
maker, and Reward or Punishment. And as punishment does 
not always follow in this life, nothing less than a recognition 
of Divine Law will suffice ; in other words, there must be 
intuitions of God, Law. Obligation, Punishment, and a Future 
Life : every one of which may be, and is, deemed to be innate. 

It is incredible that men, if all these things were stamped 
on their minds, could deliberately offend against them ; still 
more, that rulers should silently connive at such transgressions. 

4. The supporters of innate principles are unable to point 
out distinctly what they are.* Yet, if these were imprinted 

* Locke examines the Innate Principles put forth by Lord Herbert 
in his book De Veritate, 1st, There is a supreme governor of the world ; 
2nd,Worship is due to him; 3rd, Virtue, joined with Piety, is the best 
Worship; 4th, Men must repent of their sins; 5th, There will be a 
future life of rewards and punishments. Locke admits these to be such 
truths as a rational creature, after due explanation given them, can hardly 
avoid attending to ; but he will not allow them to be innate. For, 

First, There are other propositions with as good a claim as these to 
be of the number imprinted by nature on the mind. 

Secondly, The marks assigned are not found in all the propositions. 
Many men, and even whole nations, disbelieve some of them. 

Then, as to the third principle, — virtue, joined with piety, is the best 
worship of God ; he cannot see how it can be innate, seeing that it con- 
tains a name, virtue, of the greatest possible uncertainty of meaning. 
For, if virtue be taken, as commonly it is, to denote the actions accounted 
laudable in particular countries, then the proposition will be untrue. Or, 
if it is taken to mean accordance with God's will, it will then be true, 
but unmeaning ; that God will be pleased with what he commands is an 
identical assertion, of no use to any one. 

So the fourth proposition, — men must repent of their sins, — is open to 
the same remark. It is not possible that God should engrave on men's 
minds principles couched on such uncertain words as Virtue and Sin. 
Nay more, as a general word is nothing in itself, but only report as to 
particular facts, the knowledge of rules is a knowledge of a sufficient 
number of actions to determine the rule. [Innate principles are not com- 
patible with Nominalism.] 

According to Lord Herbert, the standard of virtue is the common 
notions in which all men agree. They are such as the following, — to avoid 
evil, to be temperate, in doubtful cases to choose the safer course, not to 
do to others what you would not wish done to yourself, to be grateful to 



570 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— LOCKE. 

on the mind, there could be no more donbt about them than 
about the number of our fingers. We well know that, if men 
of different sects were to write out their respective lists, they 
would set down exactly such as suited their several schools or 
churches, j 

There is, Locke remarks, a ready, but not very material, 
answer to his objections, namely, that the innate principles 
may, by Education and Custom, be darkened and worn out 
of men's minds. But this takes away at once the argument 
from universal consent, and leaves nothing but what each 
party thinks should pass for universal consent, namely, their 
own private persuasion : a method whereby a set of men 
presuming themselves to be the only masters of right reason, 
put aside the votes and opinions of the rest of mankind. Thus, 
notwithstanding the innate light, we are as much in the dark 
as if it did not exist ; a rule that will warp any way is not to 
be distinguished amidst its contraries. If these rules are so 
liable to vary, through adventitious notions, we should find 
them clearest in children and in persons wholly illiterate. 
He grants that there are many opinions, received by men of 
different countries, educations, and tempers, and held as 
unquestionable first principles ; but then the absurdity of 
some, and the mutual contradiction of others, make it impos- 
sible that they should be all true. Yet it will often happen 
that these men will sooner part with their lives, than suffer 
the truth of their opinions to be questioned. 

We can see from our experience how the belief in prin- 
ciples grows up. Doctrines, with no better original than the 
superstition of a nurse, or the authority of an old woman, 
may in course of time, and by the concurrence of neighbours, 
grow up to the dignity of first truths in Heligion and in 
Morality. Persons matured under those influences, and, 
looking into their own minds, find nothing anterior to the 
opinions taught them before they kept a record of themselves; 
they, therefore, without scruple, conclude that those proposi- 
tions whose origin they cannot trace are the impress of God 
and nature upon their minds. Such a result is unavoidable 
in the circumstances of the bulk of mankind, who require 
some foundation of principles to rest upon, and have no 

benefactors, &c. Conscience is what teaches us to carry out those prin- 
ciples in practice. It excites joy over good actions, and produces ab- 
horrence and repentance for bad. Upon it, our repentance of miod and 
eternal welfare depend. (For an account of Lord Herbert's common 
notions, see Appendix B., Lord Herbert of Cherbury.J 



MORALITY SUPPOSES LAW. 571 

means of obtaining them but on trust from others. Custom is 
a greater power than Nature, and, while we are yet young, 
seldom fails to make us worship as divine what she has inured 
us to ; nor is it to be wondered at, that, when we come to 
mature life^ and are engrossed with quite different matters, 
we are indisposed to sit down and examine all our received 
tenets, to find ourselves in the wrong, to run counter to the 
opinions of our country or party, and to be branded with 
such epithets as whimsical, sceptical, Atheist. It is inevitable 
that we should take up at first borrowed principles ; and unless 
we have all the faculties and the means of searching into 
their foundations, we naturally go on to the end as we have 
begun. 

In the following chapter (IV.), he argues the general 
question of Innate Ideas in the case of the Idea of God. 

In Book II., Chap. XXL, Locke discusses the freedom of 
the will, with some allusions to the nature of happiness and 
the causes of wrong conduct. Happiness is the utmost plea- 
sure we are capable of, misery the utmost pain ; pleasure and 
pain define Good and Evil. In practice, we are chiefly occu- 
pied in getting rid of troubles ; absent good does not much 
move us. All uneasiness being removed, a moderate portion of 
good contents us ; and some few degrees of pleasure in a suc- 
cession of ordinary enjoyments are enough to make happiness. 
[Epicurus, and others among the ancients, said as much.] 

Men have wrong desires, and do wrong acts, but it is from 
wrong judgments. They never mistake a present pleasure or 
pain ; they always act correctly upon that. They are the 
victims of deceitful appearances ; they make wrong judgments 
in comparing present with future pains, such is the weakness 
of the mind's constitution in this department:. Our wrong 
judgments proceed partly from ignorance and partly from 
inadvertence, and our preference of vice to virtue is accounted 
for by these wrong judgments. 

Chap. XXVIII. discusses Moral Relations. Good and 
Evil are nothing but Pleasure and Pain, and what causes 
them. Moral Good or Evil is the conformity or unconformity 
of our voluntary actions to some Law, entailing upon us good 
or evil by the will and power of the Law-giver, to which good 
and evil we apply the names Reward and Punishment. 

There are three sorts of Moral Rules : 1st, The Divine 
Law, whether promulgated by the Light of Nature or by 
Revelation, and enforced by rewards and punishments in a 
future life. This law, when ascertained, is the touchstone of 



572 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— LOCKE. 

moral rectitude. 2nd, The Civil Law, or the Law of the 
State, supported by the penalties of the civil judge. 3rd, 
The Law of Opinion or Reputation. Even after resigning, 
to public authority, the disposal of the public force, men 
still retain the power of privately approving or disap- 
proving actions, according to their views of virtue and vice- 
The being commended or dispraised by our fellows may thus 
be called the sanction of Reputation, a power often surpassing 
in efficacy both the other sanctions. 

Morality is the reference of all actions to one or other of 
these three Laws. Instead of applying innate notions of good 
and evil, the mind, having been taught the several rules en- 
joined by these authorities, compares any given action with 
these rules, and pronounces accordingly. A rule is an aggre- 
gate of simple Ideas ; so is an action ; and the conformity 
required is the ordering of the action so that the simple ideas 
belonging to it may correspond to those required by the law. 
Thus, all Moral Notions may be reduced to the simple ideas 
gained by the two leading sources — Sensation and Reflection. 
Murder is an aggregate of simple ideas, traceable in the detail 
to these sources. 

The summary of Locke's views is as follows : — 

I. — With reference to the Standard of Morality, we have 
these two grea/t positions — 

First, That the production of pleasure and pain to sentient 
beings is the ultimate foundation of moral good and evil. 

Secondly, That morality is a system of Law, enacted by 
one or other of three different authorities. 

II. — In the Psychology of Ethics, Locke, by implication, 
holds — 

First, That there is no innate moral sentiment ; that our 
moral ideas are the generalities of moral actions. That our 
faculties of moral discernment are — (1) those that discern 
the pleasures and pains of mankind; and (2), those that 
comprehend and interpret the laws of God, the Nation, and 
Public Opinion. And (3) he counts that the largest share 
in the formation of our Moral Sentiments is due to Education 
and Custom. 

[We have seen his views on Free-will, p. 413.] 

As regards the nature of Disinterested Action, he pro- 
nounces no definite opinion. He makes few attempts to 
analyze the emotional and active part of our nature. 

III. — His Summum Bonum is stated generally as the pro- 
curing of Pleasure and the avoiding of Pain. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MORAL PERCEPTIONS. 573 

IV. — He has no peculiar views on the Moral Code, or on 
the enforcements of Morality. 

V. — The connexion of Ethics with Politics is, in him, the 
assimilating of Morality to Law. 

VI. — With reference to Theology, he considers that, by 
the exercise of the Reason, we may discover the existence and 
attributes of God, and our duties to him ; his ascertained will 
is the highest moral rule, the true touchstone of Moral Recti- 
tude. 

JOSEPH BUTLER. [1692-1752.] 

Butler's Ethical System may be found — First, in a short 
Dissertation on Virtue, appended to the Analogy ; secondly, 
and chiefly, in his first three Sermons, entitled 'Human 
Nature;' thirdly, in other Sermons, as (V.) on Compassion, and 
(XI.) on Benevolence. Various illustrations of Ethical doctrine 
are interspersed through the Analogy, as in Part I., Chap. 2, 
entitled 'the government of God by rewards and punish- 
ments.' 

The Dissertation on Virtue is intended to vindicate, in 
man, the existence of a moral nature, apart from both Pru- 
dence and Benevolence. 

A moral government supposes a moral nature in man, or 
a power of distinguishing right from wrong. All men and all 
systems agree as to the fact of moral perceptions. 

As characteristics of these moral perceptions, it is to be 
noted — First, they refer to voluntary actions. Secondly, they 
are accompanied with the feelings of good or of ill desert, 
which good or ill desert is irrespective of the good of society. 
Thirdly, the perception of ill desert has regard to the capaci- 
ties of the agent. Fourthly, Prudence, or regard to ourselves, 
is a fair subject of moral approbation, and imprudence of the 
contrary. Our own self-interest seems to require strengthen- 
ing by other men's manifested pleasure and displeasure. Still, 
this position is by no means indisputable, and the author is 
walling to give up the words ' virtue' and ' vice/ as applicable 
to prudence and folly ; and to contend merely that our moral 
faculty is not indifferent to this class of actions. Fifthly, 
Virtue is not wholly resolvable into Benevolence (that is, the 
general good, or Utility*). This is shown by the fact that 

* In this respect, Butler differs from both Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. 
With. Shaftesbury, the main function of the moral sense is to smile ap- 
proval on benevolent affections, by which an additional pleasure is thrown 
into the scale against the selfish affections. The superiority of the 



574 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— BUTLEE. 

our approbation is not in proportion to the amount of happi- 
ness flowing from an action [he means immediately flowing, 
which does not decide the question]. We disapprove of false- 
hood, injustice^ and unprovoked violence, even although more 
happiness would result from them than from the contrary. 
Moreover, we are not always judges of the whole consequences 
of acting. Undoubtedly, however, benevolence is our duty, if 
there be no moral principle to oppose it. 

The title 4 Human Nature,' given to Butler's chief Ethical 
exposition, indicates that he does not take an a priori view of 
the foundations of Ethics, like Cud worth and Clarke, but 
makes then! repose on the constitution of the human mind. 

In Sermon first, he lays out the different parts of our 
Emotional and Active nature, including Benevolence, Self- 
love, Conscience. The recognition of these three as distinct, 
and mutually irresolvable, is the Psychological basis of his 
Ethics.* 

The existence of pure or disinterested Benevolence is 
proved by such facts, as Friendship, Compassion, Parental and 
Filial affections, Benevolent impulses to mankind generally. 
But although the object of benevolence is the public good, and 
of self-love private good, yet the two ultimately coincide. 
[This questionable assertion must trammel any proof that the 
author can give of our possessing purely disinterested 
impulses.] 

In a long note, he impugns the theory of Hobbes that 
Benevolent affection and its pleasures are merely a form of the 
love of Power. He maintains, and with reason, that the love 
of power manifests its consequences quite as much in cruelty 
as in benevolence. 

The second argument, to show that Benevolence is a fact 
of our constitution, involves the greatest peculiarity of Butler's 

•'natural affections' thus depends on a double pleasure, their intrinsically 
pleasureable character, and the superadded pleasure of reflection. The 
tendency of Shaftesbury is here to make benevolence and virtue identical, 
and at the same time to impair the disinterested character of benevo- 
lence. 

* With this view, we may compare the psychology of Shaftes- 
bury, set forth in his ' Characteristics of Men, Manners, and Times.' 
The soul has two kinds of affections— (1) Self-affection, leading to the 
4 good of the private,' such as love of life, revenge, pleasure or aptitude 
towards nourishment and the means of generation, emulation or love of 
praise, indolence ; and (2) Natural affections, leading to the good of the 
public. The natural or spontaneous predominance of benevolence is 
goodness ; the subjection of the selfish by effort and training is virtue. 
Virtue consists generally in the proper exercise of the several affections. 



WELL-BEING NOT THE END OF APPETITE. 575 

Psychology, although he was not the first to announce it. The 
scheme of the human feelings comprehends, in addition to 
Benevolence and Self- Love, a number of passions and affections 
tending to the same ends as these (some to the good of our 
fellows, others to our own good) ; while in following them we 
are not conscious of seeking those ends, but some different 
ends. Such are our various Appetites and Passions. Thus, 
hunger promotes our private well-being, but in obeying its 
dictates we are not thinking of that object, but of the procur- 
ing of food. Curiosity promotes both public and private good, 
but its direct and immediate object is knowledge. 

[This refined distinction appears first in Aquinas ; there is 
in it a palpable confusion of ideas. If we regard the final 
impulse of hunger, it is not toward the food, but towards the 
appeasing of a pain and the gaining of a pleasure, which are 
certainly identical with self, being the definition of self in the 
last resort. We associate the food with the gratification of 
these demands, and hence food becomes an end to us — one of 
the associated or intermediate ends. So the desire of know- 
ledge is the desire of the pleasure, or of the relief from pain, 
accruing from knowledge ; while, as in the case of food, 
knowledge is to a great degree only an instrument, and there- 
fore an intermediate and associated end. So the desire of 
esteem is the desire of a pleasure, or else of the instrument of 
pleasure. 

In short, Butler tries, without effect, to evade the general 
principles of the will — our being moved exclusively by plea- 
sure and pain. Abundant reference has been already made 
to the circumstances that modify in appearance, or in reality, 
the operation of this principle. The distinction between self- 
love and the particular appetites, passions, and affections, is 
mainly the distinction between a great aggregate of the reason 
(the total interests of our being) and the separate items that 
make it up.] 

The distinction is intended to prepare the way for the 
setting forth of Conscience,* which is called a ' principle of 

* Butler's definition of conscience, and his whole treatment of it, have 
created a great puzzle of classification, as to whether he is to be placed 
along with the upholders of a ' moral sense. ' Shaftesbury is more ex- 
plicit : - No sooner does the eye open upon figures, the ear to sounds, 
than straight the Beautiful results, and grace and harmony are known 
and acknowledged. No sooner are actions viewed, no sooner the human 
affections discerned (and they are, most of them, as soon discerned as 
felt), than straight an inward eye distinguishes the fair and shapely , the 
amiable and admirable* apart from the deformed, the foul, the odious, or the 



576 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — BUTLER. 

reflection in men, whereby they distinguish between, approve 
and disapprove, their own actions.' This principle has for its 
result the good of society ; still, in following it, we are not con- 
scious of aiming at the good of society. A father has an 
affection for his children ; this is one thing. He has also a 
principle of reflection, that urges him with added force and 
with more steady persistency than any affection ; which prin- 
ciple must therefore be different from mere affection. 

Butler's analysis of the human feelings is thus : I. — Bene- 
volence and Self-love. II. — The particular Appetites, Passions, 
and Affections, operating in the same direction as Benevolence 
and Self-love, but without intending it. III. — Conscience, of 
which the same is to be said. 

His reply to the objection, — against our being made for 
Benevolence, — founded on our mischievous propensities, is, that 
in the same way there are tendencies mischievous to ourselves, 
and yet no one denies us the possession of self-love. He re- 
marks farther that these evil tendencies are the abuse of such 
as are right ; ungovernable passion, reckless pursuit of our 
own good, and not pure malevolence, are the causes of in- 
justice and the other vices. 

In short, we are made for pursuing both our own good 
and the good of others ; but present gratifications and passing 
inclinations interfere alike with both objects. 

Sermons II., HI., are meant to establish, from our moral 
nature, the Supremacy of Conscience. 

Our moral duties may be deduced from the scheme of our 
nature, which shows the design of the Deity. There may be 
some difficulties attending the deduction, owing to the want 
of uniformity in the human constitution. Still, the broad 
feelings of the mind, and the purpose of them, can no more be 
mistaken than the existence and the purpose of the eyes. It 
can be made quite apparent that the single principle called 
conscience is intended to rule all the rest. 

But, as Conscience is only one part of our nature, there 

despicable.'' ' In a creature capable of forming general notions of things, 
not only the outward beings which offer themselves to the sense, are the 
objects of the affections, but the very actions themselves, and the affec- 
tions of pity, kindness, and gratitude, and their contraries, being brought 
into the mind by reflection, become objects. 80 that, by means of this 
reflected sense, there arises another kind of affection towards these affec- 
tions themselves, which have been already felt, and are now become the 
subject of a new liking or dislike.' What this ' moral sense' approves is 
benevolence, and when its approval has been acted upon, by subjecting 
the selfish affections, * virtue ' is attained. 



SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE. 577 

being two other parts, namely, (1) Benevolence and Self-love, 
and (2) the particular Appetites and Passions, why are they 
not all equally natural, and all equally to be followed ? 

This leads to an inquiry into the meanings of the word 
Nature. 

First, Nature may mean any prompting whatever ; anger 
and affection are equally natural, as being equally part of us. 

Secondly, it may mean our strongest passion, what most 
frequently prevails with us and shows our individual cha- 
racters. In this sense, vice may be natural. 

Bat, thirdly, we may reclaim against those two meanings, 
and that on the authority both of the Apostle Paul and of the 
ancient sages, and declare that the proper meaning of follow- 
ing nature is following Conscience, or that superior principle 
in every man which bears testimony to its own supremacy. 
It is by this faculty, natural to a man, that he is a moral 
agent, a law to himself. 

Men may act according to their strongest principle, and 
yet violate their nature, as when a man, urged by present gra- 
tification, incurs certain ruin. The violation of nature, in this 
instance, may be expressed as disproportion. 

There is thus a difference in hind between passions ; self- 
love is superior to temporary appetite. 

Passion or Appetite means a tendency towards certain 
objects with no regard to any other objects. Reflection or 
Conscience steps in to protect the interests that these would 
lead us to sacrifice. Surely, therefore, this would be enough 
to constitute superiority. Any other passion taking the lead 
is a case of usurpation. 

We can hardly form a notion of Conscience without this 
idea of superiority. Had it might, as it has right, it would 
govern the world. 

Were there no such supremacy, all actions would be on an 
equal footing. Impiety, profaneness, and blasphemy would 
be as suitable as reverence ; parricide would justify itself by 
the right of the strongest. 

Hence human nature is made up of a number of propen- 
sities in union with this ruling principle ; and as, in civil 
government, the constitution is infringed by strength pre- 
vailing over authority, so the nature of man is violated 
when the lower faculties triumph over conscience. Man 
has a rule of right within, if he will honestly attend to 
it. Out of this arrangement, also, springs Obligation ; the 
law of conscience is the law of our nature. It carries its 
37 



578 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — BUTLER. 

authority with it ; it is the guide assigned by the Author of 
our nature. 

He then replies to the question, ' Why should we be con- 
cerned about anything out of or beyond ourselves ? ! Suppos- 
ing we do possess in our nature a regard to the well-being of 
others, why may we not set that aside as being in our way 
to our own good. 

The answer is, We cannot obtain our own good without 
having regard to others, and undergoing the restraints pre- 
scribed by morality. There is seldom any inconsistency 
between our duty and our interest. Self-love, in the present 
world, coincides with virtue. If there are any exceptions, all 
will be set right in the final distribution of things. Conscience 
and self-love, if we understand our true happiness, always 
lead us the same way. 

Such is a brief outline of the celebrated ' Three Sermons 
on Human Nature.' The radical defect of the whole scheme 
lies in its Psychological basis. Because we have, as mature 
human beings, in civilized society, a principle of action 
called Conscience, which we recognize as distinct from Self- 
love and Benevolence, as well as from the Appetites and Pas- 
sions, Butler would make us believe that this is, from the 
first, a distinct principle of our nature. The proper reply is 
to analyze Conscience ; showing at the same time, from its 
very great discrepancies in different minds, that it is a growth, 
or product, corresponding to the education and the circum- 
stances of each, although of course involving the common 
elements of the mind. 

In his Sermons on Compassion (V., VI.), he treats this as 
one of the Affections in his second group of the Feelings 
(Appetites, Passions, and Affections) ; vindicates its existence 
against Hobbes, who treated it as an indirect mode of self- 
regard ; and shows its importance in human life, as an adjunct 
to Rational Benevolence and Conscience. 

In discussing Benevolence (Sermon XII.) Butler's object is 
to show that it is not ultimately at variance with Self-love. 
In the introductory observations, he adverts to the historical 
fact, that vice and folly take different turns in different ages, 
and that the peculiarity of his own age is ' to profess a con- 
tracted spirit, and greater regards to self-interest ' than 
formerly. He accommodates his preaching of virtue to this 
characteristic of his time, and promises that there shall be all 
possible concessions made to the favourite passion. 

His mode of arguing is still the same as in the sermons on 



CONNEXION OF BENEVOLENCE WITH HAPPINESS. 579 

Human Nature. Self-love does not comprehend our whole 
being ; it is only one principle among many. It is characterized 
by a subjective end, the feeling of happiness ; but we have other 
ends of the objective kind, the ends of our appetites, passions, 
and affections — food, injury to another, good to another, &c. 
The total happiness of our being includes all our ends. Self-love 
attends only to one interest, and if we are too engrossed with 
that, we may sacrifice other interests, and narrow the sphere 
of our happiness. A certain disengagement of mind is neces- 
sary to enjoyment, and the intensity of pursuit interferes with 
this. [This is a true remark, but misapplied ; external pur- 
suit may be so intense as nearly to do away with subjective 
consciousness, and therefore with pleasure ; but this applies 
more to objective ends, — wealth, the interest of others — than 
to self-love, which is in its nature subjective.] 

Now, what applies to the Appetites and Affections applies 
to Benevolence ; it is a distinct motive or urgency, and should 
have its scope like every other propensity, in order to hap- 
piness. 

Such is his reasoning, grounded on his peculiar Psycho- 
logy. He then adduces the ordinary arguments to show, that 
seeking the good of others is a positive gratification in itself, 
and fraught with pleasure in its consequences. 

In summary, Butler's views stand thus : — 

I. — His Standard of Bight and Wrong is the subjective 
Faculty, called by him Reflection, or Conscience. He assumes 
such an amount of uniformity in human beings, in regard to 
this Faculty, as to settle all questions that arise. 

II. — His Psychological scheme is the threefold division of 
the mind already brought oat ; Conscience being one division, 
and a distinct and primitive element of our constitution. 

He has no Psychology of the Will ; nor does he anywhere 
inquire into the problem of Liberty and Necessity. 

He maintains the existence of Disinterested Benevolence, 
by saying that Disinterested action, as opposed to direct self- 
regard, is a much wider fact of our mental system, than the 
regard to the welfare of others. We have seen that this is a 
mere stroke of ingenuity, and owes its plausible appearance 
to his making our associated ends the primary ends of our 
being. 

III. — With regard to the Summum Bonum, or the theory 
of Happiness, he holds that men cannot be happy by the pur- 
suit of mere self ; but must give way to their benevolent im- 
pulses as well, all under the guidance of conscience. In short, 



580 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — HUTCHESOK 

virtue is happiness, even in this world ; and, if there be any 
exception to the rule, it will be rectified in another world. 
This is in fact the Platonic view. Men are not to pursue 
happiness ; that would be to fall into the narrow rut of self- 
love, and would be a failure ; they are to pursue virtue, 
including the good of others, and the greatest happiness will 
ensue to each. 

It is a remarkable indication of the spirit of Butler's age, 
or of his estimate of it, that he would never venture to require 
of any one a single act of uncompensated self-sacrifice. 

IV.— The substance of the Moral Code of Butler is in no 
respect peculiar to him. He gives no classification of our 
duties. His means and inducements to virtue have just been 
remarked upon. 

V.— The relationship of Ethics to Politics and to Theology 
needs no remark. 

FRANCIS HUTCHESON. [1694-1747,] 

Hutcheson's views are to be found in his ' Inquiry into 
the Ideas of Beauty and Virtue/ his ' Treatise on the Pas- 
sions,' and his posthumous work, ' A System of Moral Philo- 
sophy.' The last-mentioned, as the completest exposition of 
his Ethics, Speculative and Practical, is followed here. 

There are three books ; the first treating of Human Na- 
ture and Happiness ; the second, of Laws of Nature and 
Duties, previous to Civil Government and other adventitious 
states ; the third, of Civil Polity. 

In Book I., Chap. I., Hutcheson states that the aim of 
Moral Philosophy is to point out the course of action that will 
best promote the highest happiness and perfection of men, by 
the light of human nature and to the exclusion of revelation : 
thus to indicate the rules of conduct that make up the Law of 
Nature. Happiness, the end of this art, being the state of 
the mind arising from its several grateful perceptions or 
modifications, the natural course of the inquiry is to consider 
the various human powers, perceptions, and actions, and then 
to compare them so as to find what really constitutes happi- 
ness, and how it may be attained. The principles that first 
display themselves in childhood are the external senses, 
with some small powers of spontaneous motion, intro- 
ducing to the mind perceptions of pleasure and pain, which 
becoming forthwith the object of desire and aversion, are 
our first notions of natural good and evil. Next to Ideas 
of Sensation, we acquire Concomitant ideas of Sensation from 



PEIMARY FEELINGS. 581 

two or more senses together — number, extension, &c. Ideas 
of consciousness or reflection, which is another natural power 
of perception, complete the list of the materials of knowledge ; 
to which, when the powers of judging and reasoning are added, 
all the main acts of the understanding are given. There are 
still, however, some finer perceptions, that may be left over 
until the will is disposed of. 

Under the head of Will, he notes first the facts of Desire 
and Aversion, being new motions of the soul, distinct from, 
though arising out of, sensations, perceptions, and judgments. 
To these it is common to add Joy and Sorrow, arising in con- 
nexion with desire, though they partake more of sensations 
than of volitions. Acts of the will are selfish or benevolent, 
according as one's own good, or (as often really in fact hap- 
pens) the good of others is pursued. Two calm natural de- 
terminations of the will are to be conceded ; the one an inva- 
riable constant impulse towards one's own highest perfection 
and happiness ; the other towards the universal happiness of 
others, when the whole system of beings is regarded without 
prejudice, and in the absence of the notion that their hap- 
piness interferes with our own. There are also turbulent 
passions and appetites, whose end is their simple gratifica- 
tion ; whereupon the violence and uneasiness cease. Some 
are selfish — hunger, lust, power, fame; some benevolent — pity, 
gratitude, parental affection, &c. ; others may be of either 
kind — anger, envy, &c. In none of them is there any refer- 
ence in the mind to the greatest happiness of self or others ; 
and that they stand so often in real opposition to the calm 
motions, is sufficient proof of their distinct character, e.g., the 
opposition of lust and calm regard for one's highest interest. 

In Chapter II., he takes up some finer powers of per- 
ception, and some other natural determinations of the will. 
Bound up with seeing and hearing are certain other powers 
of perception or senses — Beauty, Imitation, Harmony, Design, 
summed up by Addison under the name of Imagination, 
and all natural sources of pleasure. The two grateful 
perceptions of Novelty and Grandeur may be added to the 
list of natural determinations or senses of pleasure. To 
attempt to reduce the natural sense of Beauty to the discern- 
ment of real or apparent usefulness is hopeless. The next 
sense of the soul noted is the Sympathetic, in its two Phases 
of Pity or Compassion and Congratulation. This is fellow- 
feeling on apprehending the state of others, and pr oneness to 
relieve, without any thought of our own advantage, as seen 



582 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— HUTCHESON. 

in children. Pity is stronger than congratulation, because, 
whether for ourselves or others, the desire to repel evil is 
stronger than to pursue good. Sympathy extends to all the 
affections and passions ; it greatly subserves the grand deter- 
mination of the soul towards universal happiness. 

Other finer senses have actions of men for their objects, 
there being a general determination of the soul to exercise 
all its active powers, — a universal impulse to action, bodily 
and intellectual. In all such action there is real pleasure, but 
the grand source of human happiness is the power of per- 
ceiving the moral notions of actions and characters. This, 
the Moral Sense, falls to be fully discussed later. Distinct 
from our moral sense is the Sense of Honour or Shame, when 
we are praised or condemned by others. The Sense of 
Decency or Dignity, when the mind perceives excellence of 
bodily and mental powers in ourselves or others, is also 
natural, and distinct from the moral sense. Some would 
allow a natural Sense of the Ridiculous in objects or events. 
There follow some remarks on the tendency to associate 
perceptions. In addition also to the natural propen- 
sity towards action, there is a tendency in repeated action 
to become Habit, whereby our powers are greatly increased. 
Habit and Customs can raise, however, no new ideas beyond 
the sentiments naturally excited by the original actions. 

Sexual desire, wisely postponed by nature beyond the 
earliest years, does not, in man, end in mere sensual pleasure, 
but involves a natural liking of beauty as an indication of 
temper and manners, whereupon grow up esteem and love. 
Mankind have a universal desire of offspring, and love for 
their young ; also an affection, though weaker, for all blood- 
relations. They have, further, a natural impulse to society 
with their fellows, as an immediate principle, and are not 
driven to associate only by indigence. All the other princi- 
ples already mentioned, having little or no exercise in solitude, 
would bring them together, even without family ties. Patriot- 
ism and love of country are acquired in the midst of social 
order. 

Natural 'Religion inevitably springs up in the best minds 
at sight of the benevolent order of the world, and is soon 
diffused among all. The principles now enumerated will 
be found, though in varying proportions, among all men not 
plainly monstrous by accident, &c. 

Chapter III. treats of the Ultimate Determinations of the 
Will and Benevolent Affections. The question now is to find 



BENEVOLENCE. 583 

some order and subordination among the powers that have 
been cited, and to discover the ultimate ends of action, about 
which there is no reasoning. He notices various systems that 
make calm self-love the one leading principle of action, and 
specially the system that, allowing the existence of particular 
disinterested affections, puts the self-satisfaction felt in yield- 
ing to the generous sentiments above all other kinds of enjoy- 
ments. But, he asks, is there not also a calm determination 
towards the good of others, without reference to private 
interest of any kind ? In the case of particular desires, which 
all necessarily involve an uneasy sensation until they are 
gratified, it is no proof of their being selfish that their gratifi- 
cation gives the joy of success and stops uneasiness. On the 
other hand, to desire the welfare of others in the interest of 
ourselves is not benevolence nor virtue. What we have to 
seek are benevolent affections terminating ultimately in the 
good of others, and constituted by nature (either alone, or 
mayhap corroborated by some views of interest) ' the imme- 
diate cause of moral approbation.' Now, anything to be had 
from men could not raise within us such affections, or make 
us careful about anything beyond external deportment. Nor 
could rewards from God, or the wish for self-approbation, 
create such affections, although, on the supposition of their 
existence, these may well help to foster them. It is benevolent 
dispositions that we morally approve ; but dispositions are not 
to be raised by will. Moreover, they are often found where 
there has been least thought of cultivating them ; and, some- 
times, in the form of parental affection, gratitude, &c, they 
are followed so little for the sake of honour and reward, that 
though their absence is condemned, they are themselves hardly 
accounted virtuous at all. He then rebuts the idea that gene- 
rous affections are selfish, because by sympathy we make the 
pleasures and pains of others our own. Sympathy is a real 
fact, but has regard only to the distress or suffering beheld or 
imagined in others, whereas generous affection is varied to- 
ward different characters. Sympathy can never explain the 
immediate ardour of our good- will towards the morally ex- 
cellent character, or the eagerness of a dying man for the 
prosperity of his children and friends. Having thus accepted 
the existence of purely disinterested affections, and divided 
them as before into calm and turbulent, he puts the question, 
Whether is the selfish or benevolent principle to yield in case 
of opposition ? And although it appears that, as a fact, the 
universal happiness is preferred to the individual in the order 



584 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — HUTCHESON. 

of the world by the Deity, this is nothing, unless by some 
determination of the soul we are made to comply with the 
Divine intentions, If by the desire of reward, it is selfishness 
still ; if by the desire, following upon the sight, of moral ex- 
cellence, then there must necessarily exist as its object some 
determination of the will involving supreme moral excellence, 
otherwise there will be no way of deciding between particular 
affections. This leads on to the consideration of the Moral 
Faculty. 

But, in the beginning of Chapter IV., he first rejects one by 
one these various accounts of the reason of our approbation 
of moral conduct : — pleasure by sympathy ; pleasure through 
the moral sense ; notion of advantage to the agent, or to the 
approver, and this direct or imagined ; tendency to procure 
honour ; conformity to law, to truth, fitness, congruity, &c. ; 
also education, association, &c. He then asserts a natural 
and immediate determination in man to approve certain affec- 
tions and actions consequent on them ; or a natural sense of 
immediate excellence in them, not referred to any other quality 
perceivable by our other senses, or by reasoning. It is a sense 
not dependent on bodily organs, but a settled determination 
of the soul. It is a sense, in like manner as, with every one of 
our powers — voice, designing, motion, reasoning, there is bound 
up a taste, sense, or relish, discerning and recommending their 
proper exercise ; but superior to all these, because the power 
of moral action is superior. It can be trained like any other 
sense — hearing, harmony, &c. — so as to be brought to approve 
finer objects, for instance the general happiness rather than 
mere motions of pity. That it is meant to control and regu- 
late all the other powers is matter of immediate consciousness ; 
we must ever prefer moral good to the good apprehended by 
the other perceptive powers. For while every other good is 
lessened by the sacrifices made to gain it, moral good is 
thereby increased and relished the more. The objects of 
moral approbation are primarily affections of the will, but, 
all experience shows, only such as tend to the happiness 
of others, and the moral perfection of the mind possessing 
them. There are, however, many degrees of approbation; 
and, when we put aside qualities that approve themselves 
merely to the sense of decency or dignity, and also the 
calm desire of private good, which is indifferent, being 
neither virtuous nor vicious, the gradation of qualities 
morally approved may be given thus : (1) Dignified abilities 
(pursuit of sciences, &c), showing a taste above sensuality 



MORAL FACULTY. 585 

and selfishness. (2) Qualities immediately connected with 
virtuous affections — -candour, veracity, fortitude, sense of hon- 
our. (3) The kind affections themselves, and the more as 
they are fixed rather than passionate, and extensive rather 
than narrow ; highest of all in the form of universal good- will 
to all. (4) The disposition to desire and love moral excel- 
lence, whether observed in ourselves or others — in short, true 
f)iety towards God. He goes on to give a similar scale of 
moral turpitude. Again, putting aside the indifferent quali- 
ties, and also those that merely make people despicable and 
prove them insensible, he cites — (1) the gratification of a 
narrow kind of affection when the public good might have been 
served. (2) Acts detrimental to the public, done under fear 
of personal ill, or great temptation. (3) Sudden angry pas- 
sions (especially when grown into habits) causing injury. 
(4) Injury caused by selfish and sensual passions. (5) De- 
liberate injury springing from calm selfishness. (6) Impiety 
towards the Deity, as known to be good. The worst conceivable 
disposition, a fixed, unprovoked original malice, is hardly 
found among men. In the end of the chapter, he re-asserts 
the supremacy of the moral faculty, and of the principle of pure 
benevolence that it involves. The inconsistency of the prin- 
ciples of self-love and benevolence when it arises, is reduced 
in favour of the second by the intervention of the moral sense, 
which does not hold out future rewards and pleasures of self- 
approbation, but decides for the generous part by ' an imme- 
diate undefinable perception.' So at least, if human nature 
were properly cultivated, although it is true that in common 
life men are wont to follow their particular affections, generous 
and selfish, without thought of extensive benevolence or calm 
self-love ; and it is found necessary to counterbalance the 
advantage that the selfish principles gain in early life, by 
propping up the moral faculty with considerations of the 
surest mode of attaining the highest private happiness, and 
with views of the moral administration of the world by the 
Deity . 

But before passing to these subjects, he devotes Chapter V. 
to the confirmation of the doctrine of the Moral Sense, and 
first from the Sense of Honour. This, the grateful sensation 
when we are morally approved and praised, with the reverse 
when we are censured, he argues in his usual manner, involves 
no thought of private interest. However the facts may 
stand, it is always under the impression of actions being 
moral or immoral, that the sense of honour works. In 



586 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — HUTCHESCW. 

defence of the doctrine of a moral sense, against the argu- 
ment from the varying morality of different nations, he 
says it would only prove the sense not uniform, as the 
palate is not uniform in all men. But the moral sense is 
really more uniform. For, in every nation, it is the bene- 
volent actions and affections that are approved, and wher- 
ever there is an error of fact, it is the reason, not the 
moral sense, that is at fault. There are no cases of nations 
where moral approval is restricted to the pursuit of private 
interest. The chief causes of variety of moral approbation 
are three : (1) Different notions of happiness and the means 
of promoting it, whereby much that is peculiar in national 
customs, &c, is explained, without reflecting upon the moral 
sense. (2) The larger or more confined field on which men 
consider the tendencies of their actions — sect, party, country, 
&c. (3) Different opinions about the divine commands, 
which are allowed to over-ride the moral sense. The moral 
sense does not imply innate complex ideas of the several 
actions and their tendencies, which must be discovered by 
observation and reasoning ; it is concerned only about inward 
affections and dispositions, of which the effects may be very 
various. In closing this part of his subject, he considers that 
all that is needed for the. formation of morals, has been given, 
because from the moral faculty and benevolent affection all 
the special laws of nature can be deduced. But because the 
moral faculty and benevolence have difficulty in making way 
against the selfish principles so early rooted in man, it is 
needful to strengthen these foundations of morality by the 
consideration of the nature of the highest happiness. 

With Chapter VI. accordingly he enters on the discussion 
of Happiness, forming the second half of his first book. The 
supreme happiness of any being is the full enjoyment of all the 
gratifications its nature desires or is capable of ; but, in case of 
their being inconsistent, the constant gratification of the higher, 
intenser, and more durable pleasures is to be preferred. 

In Chapter VII., he therefore directly compares the various 
kinds of enjoyment and misery, in order to know what of 
the first must be surrendered, and what of the second en- 
dured, in aiming at highest attainable happiness. Pleasures 
the same in kind are preferable, according as they are more 
intense and enduring ; of a different kind, as they are more 
enduring and dignified, a fact decided at once by our imme- 
diate sense of dignity or worth. In the great diversity of 
tastes regarding pleasures, he supposes the ultimate decision 



HAPPINESS. 587 

as to the value of pleasures to rest with the possessors of finer 
perceptive powers, but adds, that good men are the best 
judges, because possessed of fuller experience than the vicious, 
whose tastes, senses, and appetites have lost their natural 
vigour through one-sided indulgence. He then goes through 
the various pleasures, depreciating the pleasures of the palate 
on the positive side, and sexual pleasure as transitory and 
enslaving when pursued for itself; the sensual enjoyments 
are, notwithstanding, quite proper within due limits, and 
then, perhaps, are at their highest. The pleasures of the 
imagination, knowledge, &c, differ from the last in not being 
preceded by an uneasy sensation to be removed, and are 
clearly more dignified and endurable, being the proper exer- 
cise of the soul when it is not moved by the affections of 
social virtue, or the offices of rational piety. The sympathetic 
pleasures are very extensive, very intense, and may be of very 
long duration ; they are superior to all the foregoing, if there 
is a hearty affection, and are at their height along with the 
feeling of universal good will. Moral Enjoyments, from the 
consciousness of good affections and actions, when by close 
reflexion we have attained just notions of virtue and merit, 
rank highest of all, as well in dignity as in duration. The 
pleasures of honour, when our conduct is approved, are also 
among the highest, and when, as commonly happens, they are 
conjoined with the last two classes, it is the height of human 
bliss. The pleasures of mirth, such as they are, fall in best 
with virtue, and so, too, the pleasures of wealth and power, 
in themselves unsatisfying. Anger, malice, revenge, &c, 
are not without their uses, and give momentary pleasure as 
removing an uneasiness from the subject of them ; but they 
are not to be compared with the sympathetic feelings, because 
their effects cannot long be regarded with satisfaction. His 
general conclusion is, that as the highest personal satisfaction 
is had in the most benevolent dispositions, the same course of 
conduct is recommended alike by the two great determinations 
of our nature, towards our own good and the good of others. 
He then compares the several sorts of pain, which, he says, 
are not necessarily in the proportion of the corresponding 
pleasures. Allowing the great misery of bodily pain, he yet 
argues that, at the worst, it is not to be compared for a 
moment to the pain of the worst wrong-doing. The imagi- 
nation, great as are its pleasures, cannot cause much pain. 
The sympathetic and moral pains of remorse and infamy are 
the worst of all. 



588 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — HUTCHESON. 

In Chapter VIII. the various Tempers and Characters are 
compared in point of happiness or misery. Even the private 
affections, in due moderation, promote the general good ; but 
that system is the best possible where, along with this, the 
generous affections also promote private good. No natural 
affection is absolutely evil ; the evil of excess in narrow gene- 
rous affection lies in the want of proportion ; in calm extensive 
good-will there can be no excess. The social and moral enjoy- 
ments, and those of honour, being the highest, the affections and 
actions that procure them are the chief means of happiness ; 
amid human mischances, however, they need support from a 
trust in Providence. The unkind affections and passions 
(anger, &c.) are uneasy even when innocent, and never were 
intended to become permanent dispositions. The narrow kind 
of affections are all that can be expected from the majority of 
men, and are very good, if only they are not the occasion of 
unjust partiality to some, or, worse, ill-grounded aversion to 
others. The rest of the chapter is taken up in painting the 
misery of the selfish passions when in excess — love of life, 
sensual pleasure, desire of power, glory, and ease. He has 
still one i object of affection to every rational mind ' that he 
must deal with before he is done with considering the question 
of highest happiness. This is the Deity, or the Mind that 
presides in the Universe. 

Chapter IX., at great length, discusses the first part of the 
subject — the framing of primary ideas regarding the Divine 
Nature. He proves the existence of an original mind from 
design, &c, in the world ; he then finds this mind to be bene- 
volent, on occasion of which he has to deal with the great 
question of Evil, giving reasons for its existence, discovering 
its uses, narrowing its range as compared with good, and 
finally reducing it by the consideration and proof of immor- 
tality ; he ends by setting forth the other attributes of God — 
providence, holiness, justice, &c. 

In Chapter X., he considers the Affections, Duty, and 
Worship to be exercised towards God. The moral sense quite 
specially enjoins worship of the Deity, internal and external ; 
internal by love and trust and gratitude, &c, external by 
prayer, praise, &c. [He seems to ascribe to prayer nothing 
beyond a subjective efficacy.] In the acknowledgment of God 
is highest happiness, and the highest exercise of the moral 
faculty. 

In Chapter XI., he closes the whole book with remarks 
on the Supreme Happiness of our Nature, which he makes 



CIRCUMSTANCES AFFECTING MOEAL JUDGMENTS. 589 

to consist in the perfect exercise of the nobler virtues, espe- 
cially love and resignation to God, and of all the inferior 
virtues consistent with the superior ; also in external pros- 
perity, so far as virtue allows. The moral sense, and the 
truest regard for our own interest, thus recommend the same 
course as the calm, generous determination ; and this makes 
up the supreme cardinal virtue of Justice, which includes 
even our duties to God. Temperance in regard to sensual 
enjoyments, Fortitude as against evils, and Prudence, or Con- 
sideration, in regard to everything that solicits our desires, 
are the other virtues ; all subservient to Justice. In no 
station of life are men shut out from the enjoyment of the 
supreme good. 

Book II. is a deduction of the more special laws of nature 
and duties of life, so far as they follow from the course of life 
shown above to be recommended by God and nature as most 
lovely and most advantageous ; all adventitious states or 
relations among men aside. The three first chapters are of a 
general nature. 

In Chapter I., he reviews the circumstances that increase 
the moral good or evil of actions. Virtue being primarily an 
affair of the will or affections, there can be no imputation of 
virtue or vice in action, unless a man is free and able to act ; 
the necessity and impossibility, as grounds of non-imputation, 
must, however, have been in no way brought about by the 
agent himself. In like manner, he considers what effects and 
consequents of his actions are imputable to the agent ; re- 
marking, by the way, that the want of a proper degree of 
good affections and of solicitude for the public good is morally 
evil. He then discusses the bearing of ignorance and error, 
vincible and invincible, and specially the case wherein an 
erroneous conscience extenuates. The difficulty of such cases, 
he says, are due to ambiguity, wherefore he distinguishes 
three meanings of Conscience that are found, (1) the moral 
faculty, (2) the judgment of the understanding about the 
springs and effects of actions, upon which the moral sense 
approves or condemns them, (3) our judgments concerning 
actions compared with the law (moral maxims, divine laws, &c). 

In Chapter II., he lays down general rules of judging about 
the morality of actions from the affections exciting to them or 
opposing them ; and first as to the degree of virtue or vice 
when the ability varies ; in other words, morality as de- 
pendent on the strength of the affections. Next, and at greater 
length, morality as dependent on the hind of the affections. 



590 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — HUTCHESON. 

Here he attempts to fix, in the first place, the degree of 
benevolence, as opposed to private interest, that is necessary 
to render men virtuous, or even innocent, in accordance 
with his principle that there is implanted in us a very high 
standard of necessary goodness, requiring us to do a public 
benefit, when clear, however burdensome or hurtful the act 
may be to ourselves ; in the second place, the proportion that 
should be kept between the narrower and the more extensive 
generous affections, where he does not forget to allow that, in 
general, a great part of human virtue must necessarily lie 
within the narrow range. Then he gives a number of special 
rules for appreciating conduct, advising, for the very sake of the 
good to others that ivill result therefrom, that men should foster 
their benevolence by the thought of the advantage accruing 
to themselves here and hereafter from their virtuous actions ; 
and closes with the consideration of the cases wherein actions 
can be imputed to other than the agents. 

In Chapter III., he enters into the general notion of Rights 
and Laws, and their divisions. From right use of such affec- 
tion or actions as are approved by the moral faculty from 
their relation to the general good, or the good of particular 
persons consistently with the general good, he distinguishes the 
right of a man to do, possess, demand, &c, which exists when 
his doing, possessing, &c. tend to the good of society, or to 
his own, consistent with the rights of others and the general 
good 5 and when obstructing him would have the contrary 
tendency. He proceeds to argue, on utilitarian principles, 
that the rights that seem to attend every natural desire are 
perfectly valid when not against the public interest, but never 
valid when they are against it. 

Chapter IV. contains a discussion upon the state of Nature, 
maintaining that it is not a state of anarchy or war, but full 
of rights and obligations. He points out that independent 
states in their relation to one another are subject to no common 
authority, and so are in a state of nature. Rights belong (1) 
to individuals, (2) to societies, (3) to mankind at large. They 
are also natural, or adventitious, and again perfect or im- 
perfect. 

Chapter V. Natural rights are antecedent to society, such 
as the right to life, to liberty, to private judgment, to mar- 
riage, &c. They are of two kinds — perfect and imperfect. 

Chapter VI. Adventitious rights are divided into Real 
and Personal (a distinction chiefly of legal value.) He also 
examines into the nature and foundation of private property. 



RIGHTS AND LAWS. 591 

Chapter VII. treats of the Acquisition of property, Hutche- 
son, as is usual with moralists, taking the occupatio of the 
Roman Law as a basis of ownership. Property involves the 
right of (1) use, (2) exclusive use, (3) alienation. 

Chapter VIII. Rights drawn from property are such as 
mortgages, servitudes, <fec, being rights of what may be 
called partial or imperfect ownership. 

Chapter IX. discusses the subject of contracts, with the 
general conditions required for a valid contract. 

Chapter X. Of Veracity. Like most writers on morals, 
Hutcheson breaks in upon the strict rule of veracity by various 
necessary, but ill- denned, exceptions. Expressions of courtesy 
and etiquette are exempted, so also artifices in war, answers 
extorted by unjust violence, and some cases of peculiar neces- 
sity, as when a man tells a lie to save thousands of lives. 

Chapter XI. Oaths and Vows. 

Chapter XII. belongs rather to Political Economy. Its 
subject is the values of goods in commerce, and the nature of 
coin. 

Chapter XIII. enumerates the various classes of contracts, 
following the Roman Law, taking up Mandatum, Depositum, 
Letting to Hire, Sale, &c. 

Chapter XIV. adds the Roman quasi-contracts. 

Chapter XV. Rights arising from injuries or wrongs 
(torts). He condemns duelling, but admits that, where it is 
established, a man may, in some cases, be justified in sending 
or accepting a challenge. 

Chapter XVI. Rights belonging to society as against the 
individual. The perfect rights of society are such as the 
following: — (1) To prevent suicide ; (2) To require the pro- 
ducing and rearing of offspring, at least so far as to tax and 
discourage bachelors ; (3) To compel men, though not 
without compensation, to divulge useful inventions ; (4) To 
compel to some industry, &c. 

Chapter XVII. takes up some cases where the ordinary 
rights of property or person are set aside by some overbearing 
necessity. 

Chapter XVIII. The way of deciding controversies in a 
state of nature by arbitration. 

Book III. — Civil Polity, embracing Domestic and Civil 
Rights. 

Chapter I. Marriage. Hutcheson considers that Marriage 
should be a perpetual union upon equal terms, ' and not such 
a one wherein the one party stipulates to himself a right of 



592 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— HUTCHES01S T . 

governing in all domestic affairs, and the other promises sub- 
jection.' He would allow divorce for adultery, desertion, or 
implacable enmity on either side. Upon defect of children, 
some sort of concubinage would be preferable to divorce, but 
leaving to the woman the option of divorce with compensation. 
He notices the misrepresentations regarding Plato's scheme of 
a community of wives ; ' Never was there in any plan less 
provision made for sensual gratification.' 

Chapter II. The Rights and Duties of Parents and Chil- 
dren. 

Chapter III. The Rights and Duties of Masters and Ser- 
vants. 

Chapter IV. discusses the Motives to constitute Civil Go- 
vernment. If men were perfectly wise and upright, there 
would be no need for government. Man is naturally sociable 
and political (Jj&ov woXnucov.} 

Chapter V. shows that the natural method of constituting 
civil government is by consent or social compact. 

Chapter VI. The Forms of Government, with their respec- 
tive advantages and disadvantages. 

Chapter VII. How far the Rights of Governors extend. 
Their lives are more sacred than the lives of private persons ; 
but they may nevertheless be lawfully resisted, and, in certain 
cases, put to death. 

Chapter VIII. The ways of acquiring supreme Power. 
That government has most divine right that is best adapted 
to the public good : a divine right of succession to civil offices 
is ridiculous. 

Chapter IX. takes up the sphere of civil law. (1) To enforce 
the laws of nature ; (2) To appoint the forms &c, of contracts 
and dispositions, with a view to prevent fraud ; (3) To require 
men to follow the most prudent methods of agriculture, manu- 
factures, and commerce ; (4) To prescribe rules in matters 
morally indifferent, where uniformity is advantageous. 
Opinions should be tolerated; all except Atheism, and the 
denial of moral obligation. 

Chapter X. The Laws of Peace and War, belonging now 
to the subject of International Law. 

Chapter XL (concluding the work) discusses some cases 
connected with the duration of the S Politick Union.' 

This bare indication of topics will suffice to give an idea 
of the working out of Hutcheson's system. For summary : — 

I. — The Standard, according to Hutcheson, is identical 
with the Moral Faculty. It is the Sense of unique excellence in 



THE DIGNIFED VIEW OF HUMAN NATUKE. 593 

certain affections and in the actions consequent npon them. 
The object of approval is, in the main, benevolence. 

II. — His division of the feelings is into calm and tur- 
bulent, each of these being again divided into self-regarding 
and benevolent. He affirms the existence of pure Disinterest- 
edness, a calm regard for the most extended well-being. 
There are also turbulent passions of a benevolent kind, whose 
end is their simple gratification. Hutcheson has thus a 
higher and lower grade of Benevolence ; the higher would 
correspond to the disinterestedness that arises from the 
operation of fixed ideas, the lower to those affections that are 
generated in us by pleasing objects. 

He has no discussion on the freedom of the will, con- 
tenting himself with mere voluntariness as an element in 
moral approbation or censure. 

III. — The Summum Bonum is fully discussed. He places 
the pleasures of sympathy and moral goodness (also of piety) 
in the highest rank, the passive sensations in the lowest. 
Instead of making morality, like health, a neutral state 
(though an indispensable condition of happiness), he ascribes 
to it the highest positive gratification. 

IV. — In proceeding upon Rights, instead of Duties, as a 
basis of classification, Hutcheson is following in the wake of 
the jurisconsults, rather than of the moralists. When he 
enters into the details of moral duties, he throws aside his 
'moral sense/ and draws his rules, most of them from Roman 
Law, the rest chiefly from manifest convenience. 

V. and VI. — Hutcheson's relation to Politics and Theology 
requires no comment. 

BERNARD DE MANDEYILLE. [1670-1733.] 

Mandeville was author of ' The Fable of the Bees ; or, 
Private Vices, Public Benefits' (1714). This work is a satire 
upon artificial society, having for its chief aim to expose the 
hollowness of the so-called dignity of human nature. Dugald 
Stewart considered it a recommendation to any theory of 
the mind that it exalted our conceptions of human nature. 
Shaftesbury's views were entitled to this advantage ; but, 
observes Mandeville, i the ideas he had formed of the good- 
ness and excellency of our nature, were as romantic and 
chimerical, as they are beautiful and amiable.' Mandeville 
examined not what human nature ought to be, but what it 
really is. In contrast, therefore, to the moralists that dis- 
tinguish between a higher and a lower in our nature, attribut- 
38 



594 



ETHICAL SYSTEMS— MANDEVILLE. 



ing to the higher everything good and noble, while the lower 
ought to be persecuted and despised, Mandeville declares the 
fancied higher parts to be the region of vanity and imposture, 
while the renowned deeds of men, and the greatness of king- 
doms, really arise from the passions usually reckoned base and 
sensual. As his views are scattered through numerous disser- 
tations, it will be best to summarize them under a few heads. 

1. Virtue and Vice. Morality is not natural to man ; it is 
the invention of wise men, who have endeavoured to infuse 
the belief, that it is best for everybody to prefer the public 
interest to their own. As, however, they could bestow no 
real recompense for the thwarting of self-interest, they con- 
trived an imaginary one — honour. Upon this they proceeded 
to divide men into two classes, the one abject and base, in- 
capable of self-denial ; the other noble, because they sup- 
pressed their passions, and acted for the public welfare. Man 
was thus won to virtue, not by force, but by flattery. 

In regard to praiseworthiness, Shaftesbury, according to 
Mandeville, was the first to affirm that virtue could exist with- 
out self-denial. This was opposed to the prevailing opinion, 
and to the view taken up and criticised by Mandeville. His 
own belief was different. c It is not in feeling the passions, or 
in being affected with the frailties of nature, that vice consists ; 
but in indulging and obeying the call of them, contrary to the 
dictates of reason.' 

2. Self -love. 'It is an admirable saying of a worthy 
divine, that though many discoveries have been made in the 
world of self-love, there is yet abundance of terra incognita 
left behind.' There is nothing so sincere upon earth as the 
love that creatures bear to themselves. ' Man centres every- 
thing in himself, and neither loves nor hates, but for his own 
sake.' Nay, more, we are naturally regardless of the effect of 
our conduct upon others; we have no innate love for our 
fellows. The highest virtue is not without reward ; it has a 
satisfaction of its own, the pleasure of contemplating one's 
own worth. But is there no genuine self-denial ? Mandeville 
answers by a distinction : mortifying one passion to gratify 
another is very common, but it is not self-denial ; self-inflicted 
pain without any recompense — where is that to be found ? 

' Charity is that virtue by which part of that sincere love 
we have for ourselves is transferred pure and unmixed to 
others (not friends or relatives), whom we have no obligation 
to, nor hope or expect anything from.' The counterfeit of 
true charity is jpity or compassion, which is a fellow-feeling for 



SELF-LOVE AND PRIDE. 595 

the sufferings of others. Pity is as much a frailty of our 
nature as anger, pride, or fear. The weakest minds (e.g.,, 
women and children) have generally the greatest share of it. 
It is excited through the eye or the ear ; when the suffering 
does not strike our senses, the feeling is weak, and hardly 
more than an imitation of pity. Pity, since it seeks rather our 
own relief from a painful sight, than the good of others, must 
be curbed and controlled in order to produce any benefit to 
society. 

Mandeville draws a nice distinction between self-love, and, 
what he calls, self -liking. "To increase the care in creatures to 
preserve themselves, Nature has given them an instinct, by 
which every individual values itself above its real worth. 1 The 
more mettlesome and spirited animals (e.g., horses) are en- 
dowed with this instinct. In us, it is accompanied with an ap- 
prehension that we do overvalue ourselves; hence our suscepti- 
bility to the confirmatory good opinion of others. But if each 
were to display openly his own feeling of superiority, quarrels 
would inevitably arise. The grand discovery whereby the ill 
consequences of this passion are avoided impoliteness. c Good 
manners consists in flattering the pride of others, and conceal- 
ing our own.' The first step is to conceal our good opinion 
of ourselves ; the next is more impudent, namely, to pretend 
that we value others more highly than ourselves. But it takes 
a long time to come to that pitch ; the Romans were almost 
masters of the world before they learned politeness. 

3. Pride, Vanity, Honour. Pride is of great consequence 
in Mandeville's system. ' The moral virtues are the political 
offspring which flattery begot upon pride.' Man is naturally 
innocent, timid, and stupid ; destitute of strong passions or ap- 
petites, he would remain in his primitive barbarism were it not 
for pride. Yet all moralists condemn pride, as a vain notion of 
our own superiority. It is a subtle passion, not easy to trace. 
It is often seen in the humility of the humble, and the shame- 
lessness of the shameless. It simulates charity ; J pride and 
vanity have built more hospitals than all the virtues together.' 
It is the chief ingredient in the chastity of women, and in the 
courage of men. Less cynical moralists than Mandeville have 
looked with suspicion on posthumous fame ; ' so silly a creature 
is man, as that, intoxicated with the fumes of vanity, he can 
feast on the thought of the praises that shall be paid his 
memory in future ages, with so much ecstasy as to neglect his 
present life, nay court and covet death, if he but imagines that 
it will add to the glory he had acquired before.' But the 



596 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— MANDEVILLE. 

most notable institution of pride is the love of honour. Hononr 
is a ■ chimera/ having no reality in nature, but a mere inven- 
tion of moralists and politicians, to keep men close to their 
engagements, whatever they be. In some families it is heredi- 
tary, like the gout; but, luckily, the vulgar are destitute of 
it. In the time of chivalry, honour was a very troublesome 
affair ; but in the beginning of the 17th century, it was melted 
over again, and brought to a new standard ; ' they put in the 
same weight of courage, half the quantity of honesty, and a 
very little justice, but not a scrap of any other virtue. ' The 
worst thing about it is duelling ; but there are more suicides 
than duels, so that at any rate men do not hate others more 
than themselves. After a half- satirical apology for duelling, 
he concludes with one insurmountable objection ; duelling is 
wholly repugnant to religion, adding with the muffled 
scepticism characteristic of the 18th century, ' how to reconcile 
them must be left to wiser heads than mine/ 

4. Private vices, public benefits. Mandeville ventures to 
compare society to a bowl of punch. Avarice is the souring, 
and prodigality the sweetening of it. The water is the 
ignorance and folly of the insipid multitude, while honour 
and the noble qualities of man represent the brandy. To 
each of these ingredients we may object in turn, but ex- 
perience teaches that, when judiciously mixed, they make 
an excellent liquor. It is not the good, but the evil qualities 
of men, that lead to worldly greatness. Without luxury 
we should have no trade. This doctrine is illustrated at 
great length, and has been better remembered than anything 
else in the book ; but it may be dismissed with two remarks. 
(1) It embodies an error in political economy, namely, that it 
is spending and not saving that gives employment to the 
poor. If Mandeville's aim had been less critical, and had he 
been less delighted with his famous paradox, we may infer 
from the acuteness of his reasoning on the subject, that he 
would have anticipated the true doctrine of political economy, 
as he saw through the fallacy of the mercantile theory. (2) 
He employs the term, luxury, with great latitude, as including 
whatever is not a bare necessary of existence. According to 
the fashionable doctrine of his day, all luxury was called an 
evil and a vice ; and in this sense, doubtless, vice is essential 
to the existence of a great nation. 

5. The origin of society. Mandeville's remarks on this 
subject are the best he has written, and come nearest to the 
accredited views of the present day. He denies that we have 



OEIGIN OF SOCIETY. 597 

any natural affection for one another, or any natural aversion 
or hatred. Each seeks his own happiness, and conflict arises 
from the opposition of men's desires. To make a society out 
of the raw material of uncivilized men, is a work of great diffi- 
culty, requiring the concurrence of many favourable accidents, 
and a long period of time. For the qualities developed among 
civilized men no more belong to them in a savage state, than 
the properties of wine exist in the grape. Society begins with 
families. In the beginning, the old savage has a great wish 
to rule his children, but has no capacity for government. He 
is inconstant and violent in his desires, and incapable of any 
steady conduct. What at first keeps men together is not so 
much reverence for the father, as the common danger from 
wild beasts. The traditions of antiquity are full of the prowess 
of heroes in killing dragons and monsters. The second step 
to society is the danger men are in from one another. To pro- 
tect themselves, several families would be compelled to accep 
the leadership of the strongest. The leaders, seeing the mis- 
chiefs of dissension, would employ all their art to extirpate 
that evil. Thus they would forbid killing one another, steal- 
ing one another's wives, &c. The third and last step is the 
invention of letters ; this is essential to the growth of society, 
and to the corresponding expansion of law.* 

I. — Mandeville's object being chiefly negative and dialec- 
tical, he has left little of positive ethical theory. Virtue he 
regards as de facto an arbitrary institution of society ; what it 
ought to be, he hardly says, but the tendency of his writings 
is to make the good of the whole to be preferred to private 
interest. 

II. — He denies the existence of a moral sense and of dis- 
interestedness. The motive to observe moral rules is pride 

* It is instructive to compare Mandeville's a priori guesses with the 
results of Mr. Maine's historical investigation into the condition of early 
societies. The evidence shows that society originated in the family 
system. Mandeville conjectured that solitary families would never attain 
to government; but Mr. Maine considers that there was a complete des- 
potic government in single families. * They have neither assemblies for 
consultation nor themistes, but every one exercises jurisdiction over hi3 
wives and chil'dren, and they pay no regard to one another.' The next 
stage is the rise of gentes and tribes, which took place probably when a 
family held together instead of separating on the death of the patriarch. 
The features of this state were chieftainship and themistes, that is, govern- 
ment not by laws, but by ex post facto decisions upon cases as they arose. 
This gradually developed into customary law, which was in its turn super- 
seded, on the invention of writing, by written codes. Maine's Ancient 
Law, Chap. V. 



598 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — HUME. 

and vanity fomented by politicians. He does not regard 
virtue as an independent end, even by association, but con- 
siders that pride in its naked form is the ever present incen- 
tive to good conduct. 

V. — The connexion of virtue with society is already fully 
indicated. 

In France, the name of Helvetius (author of Be V esprit, 
Be Vhomme, &c, 1715-71) is identified with a serious (in con- 
trast to Mandeville), and perfectly consistent, attempt to 
reduce all morality to direct Self-interest. Though he adopted 
this ultimate interpretation of the facts, Helvetius was by 
no means the 'low and loose moralist' that he has been 
described to be ; and, in particular, his own practice displayed 
a rare benevolence. 

DAVID HUME. [1711-1776.] 

The Ethical views of Hume are contained in ' An Enquiry 
concerning the Principles of Morals' 

In an Introductory Section (I.) he treats of the General 
Principles of Morals. 

After describing those that profess to deny the reality of 
the distinction of Right and Wrong, as disingenuous dis- 
putants, useless to reason with, — he states the great problem 
of Morals to be, whether the foundation is Reason or Senti- 
ment ; whether our knowledge of moral distinctions is attained 
by a chain of argument and induction, or by an immediate 
feeling or finer internal sense. 

Specious arguments may be urged on both sides. On the 
side of Reason, it may be contended, that the justice and 
injustice of actions are often a subject of argument and con- 
troversy like the sciences ; whereas if they appealed at once to 
a sense, they would be as unsusceptible of truth or falsehood 
as the harmony of verse, the tenderness of passion, or the 
brilliancy of wit. 

In reply, the supporters of Sentiment may urge that the 
character of virtue is to be amiable, and of vice to be odious, 
which are not intellectual distinctions. The end of moral 
distinctions is to influence the feelings and determine the will, 
which no mere assent of the understanding can do. Extin- 
guish our feelings towards virtue and vice, and morality 
would cease to have any influence on our lives. 

The arguments on both sides have so much force in them, 
that we may reasonably suspect that Reason and Sentiment 
both concur in our moral determinations. The final sentence 



BENEVOLENCE THE HIGHEST HUMAN MERIT. 599 

upon actions, whereby we pronounce- them praiseworthy or 
blameable, may depend on the feelings ; while a process of the 
understanding may be requisite to make nice distinctions, 
examine complicated relations, and ascertain matters of fact. 

It is not the author's intention, however, to pursue the 
subject in the form of adjudicating between these two prin- 
ciples, but to follow what he deems a simpler method — to 
analyze that complication of mental qualities, called Personal 
Merit : to ascertain the attributes or qualities that render a man 
an object of esteem and affection, or of hatred and contempt. 
This is a question of fact, and not of abstract science ; and 
should be determined, as similar questions are, in the modern 
physics, by following the experimental method, and drawing 
general maxims from a comparison of particular instances. 

Section II. is Of Benevolence. 

His first remark on Benevolence is, that it is identified in 
all countries with the highest merits that human nature is 
capable of attaining to. 

This prepares the way for the farther observation, that in 
setting forth the praises of a humane, beneficent man, the one 
circumstance that never fails to be insisted on is the happi- 
ness to society arising through his good offices. Like the 
sun, an inferior minister of providence, he cheers, invigorates, 
and sustains the surrounding world. May we not therefore 
conclude that the UTILITY resulting from social virtues, 
forms, at least, a part of their merit, and is one source of the 
approbation paid to them. He illustrates this by a number 
of interesting examples, and defers the enquiry — how large a 
part of the social virtues depend on utility, and for what 
reason we are so much affected by it. 

Section III. is on Justice. That Justice is useful to 
society, and thence derives part of its merit, would be super- 
fluous to prove. That public utility is the sole origin of 
Justice, and that the beneficial consequences are the sole foun- 
dation of its merit, may seem more questionable, but can in 
the author's opinion be maintained. 

He puts the supposition, that the human race were pro- 
vided with such abundance of all external things, that with- 
out industry, care, or anxiety, every person found every want 
fully satisfied ; and remarks, that while every other social 
virtue (the affections, &c.) might flourish, yet, as property 
would be absent, mine and thine unknown, Justice would be 
useless, an idle ceremonial, and could never come into the 
catalogue of the virtues. In point of fact, where any agent, 



600 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— HUME. 

as air, water, or land, is so abundant as to supply everybody, 
questions of justice do not arise on that particular subject. 

Suppose again that in our present necessitous condition, 
the mind of every man were so enlarged and so replete with 
generosity that each should feel as much for his fellows as for 
himself — the beau ideal of communism — -in this case Justice 
would be in abeyance, and its ends answered by Benevolence. 
This state is actually realized in well-cultivated families ; and 
communism has been attempted and maintained for a time in 
the ardour of new enthusiasms. 

Reverse the above suppositions, and imagine a society in 
such want that the utmost care is unable to prevent the 
greater number from perishing, and all from the extremes of 
misery, as in a shipwreck or a siege ; in such circumstances, 
justice is suspended in favour of self-preservation; the possi- 
bility of good order is at an end, and Justice, the means, is 
discarded as useless. Or, again, suppose a virtuous man to 
fall into a society of ruffians on the road to swift destruction ; 
his sense of justice would be of no avail, and consequently he 
would arm himself with the first weapon he could seize, con- 
sulting self-preservation alone. The ordinary punishment of 
criminals is, as regards them, a suspension of justice for the 
benefit of society. A state of war is the remission of justice 
between the parties as of no use or application. A civilized 
nation at war with barbarians must discard even the small 
relics of justice retained in war with other civilized nations. 
Thus the rules of equity and justice depend on the condition 
that men are placed in, and are limited by their Utility in 
each separate state of things. The common state of society 
is a medium between the extreme suppositions now made : 
we have our self-partialities, but have learnt the value of 
equity ; we have few enjoyments by nature, but a considerable 
number by industry. Hence we have the ideas of Properi^ ; 
to these Justice is essential, and it thus derives its moral 
obligation. 

The poetic fictions of the Golden Age, and the philosophic 
fictions of a State of Nature, equally adopt the same funda- 
mental assumption ; in the one, justice was unnecessary, in 
the other, it was inadmissible. So, if there were a race of 
creatures so completely servile as never to contest any privi- 
lege with us, nor resent any infliction, which is very much 
our position with the lower animals, justice would have no 
place in our dealings with them. Or, suppose once more, 
that each person possessed within himself every faculty for 



JUSTICE. 601 

existence, and were isolated from every other ; so solitary a 
being would be as incapable of justice as of speech. The 
sphere of this duty begins with society; and extends as 
society extends, and as it contributes to the well-being of the 
individual members of society. 

The author next examines the particular laws embodying 
justice and determining property. He supposes a creature, 
having reason, but unskilled in human nature, to deliberate 
with himself how to distribute property. His most obvious 
thought would be to give the largest possessions to the most 
virtuous, so as to give the power of doing good where there 
was the most inclination. But so unpracticable is this design, 
that although sometimes conceived, it is never executed ; the 
civil magistrate knows that it would be utterly destructive of 
human society; sublime as may be the ideal justice that it 
supposes, he sets it aside on the calculation of its bad conse- 
quences. 

Seeing also that, with nature's liberality, were all her 
gifts equally distributed, every one would have so good a 
share that no one would have a title to complain ; and seeing, 
farther, that this is the only type of perfect equality or ideal 
justice — there is no good ground for falling short of it but the 
knowledge that the attempt would be pernicious to society. 
The writers on the Law of Nature, whatever principles they 
begin with, must assign as the ultimate reason of law the 
necessities and convenience of mankind. Uninstructed nature 
could never make the distinction between mine and yours ; it 
is a purely artificial product of society. Even when this distinc- 
tion is established, and justice requires it to be adhered to, yet 
we do not scruple in extraordinary cases to violate justice in 
an individual case for the safety of the people at large. 

When the interests of society require a rule of justice, but 
do not indicate any rule in particular, the resort is to some 
analogy with a rule already established on grounds of the 
general interest. 

For determining what is a man's property, there may be 
many statutes, customs, precedents, analogies, some constant 
and inflexible, some variable and arbitrary, but all professedly 
terminating in the interests of human society. But for this, 
the laws of property would be undistinguishable from the 
wildest superstitions. 

Such a reference, instead of weakening the obligations of 
justice, strengthens them. What stronger foundations can 
there be for any duty than that, without it, human nature 



602 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — HUME. 

could not subsist ; and that, according as it is observed, the 
degrees of human happiness go on increasing ? 

Either Justice is evidently founded on Utility, or our 
regard for it is a simple instinct like hunger, resentment, 
or self-preservation. But on this last supposition, property, 
the subject-matter, must be also discerned by an instinct; 
no such instinct, however, can be affirmed. Indeed, no 
single instinct would suffice for the number of considerations 
entering into a fact so complex. To define Inheritance and 
Contract, a hundred volumes of laws are not enough ; how 
then can nature embrace such complications in the simplicity 
of an instinct. For it is not laws alone that we must have, 
but authorized interpreters. Have we original ideas of 
praetors, and chancellors, and juries ? 

Instincts are uniform in their operation ; birds of a species 
build their nests alike. The laws of states are uniform to 
about the same extent as houses, which must have a roof and 
walls, windows and chimneys, because the end in view de- 
mands certain essentials; but beyond these, there is every 
conceivable diversity. 

It is true that, by education and custom, we blame in- 
justice without thinking of its ultimate consequences. So 
universal are the rules of justice, from the universality of its 
end, that we approve of it mechanically. Still, we have often 
to recur to the final end, and to ask, What must become of 
the world if such practices prevail ? How could society sub- 
sist under such disorders ? 

Thus, then, Hume considers that, by an inductive deter- 
mination, on the strict Newtonian basis, he has proved that 
the sole foundation of our regard to justice is the support 
and welfare of society : and since no moral excellence is more 
esteemed, we must have some strong disposition in favour of 
general usefulness. Such a disposition must be a part of the 
humane virtues, as it is the sole source of the moral appro- 
bation of fidelity, justice, veracity, and integrity. 

Section IV. relates to Political Society, and is intended 
to show that Government, Allegiance, and the Laws of each 
State, are justified solely by Utility, 

If men had sagacity to perceive, and strength of mind to 
follow out, distant and general interests, there had been no 
such thing as government. In other words, if government 
were totally useless, it would not be. The duty of Allegiance 
would be no duty, but for the advantage of it, in preserving 
peace and order among mankind. 



WHY UTILITY PLEASES. 603 

[Hume is here supposing that men enter into society on 
equal terms ; he makes no allowance for the exercise of the 
right of the stronger in making compulsory social unions. 
This, however, does not affect his reasoning as to the source 
of our approbation of social duty, which is not usually ex- 
tended to tyranny.] 

When political societies hold intercourse with one another, 
certain regulations are made, termed Laws of Nations, which 
have no other end than the advantage of those concerned. 

The virtue of Chastity is subservient to the utility of 
rearing the young, which requires the combination of both 
parents ; and that combination reposes on marital fidelity. 
Without such a utility, the virtue would never have been 
thought of. The reason why chastity is extended to cases 
where child-bearing does not enter, is that general rules are 
often carried beyond their original occasion, especially in 
matters of taste and sentiment. 

The prohibition of marriage between near relations, and 
the turpitude of incest, have in view the preserving of purity 
of manners among persons much together. 

The laws of good manners are a kind of lesser morality, 
for the better securing of our pleasures in society. 

Even robbers and pirates must have their laws. Im- 
moral gallantries, where authorized, are governed by a set of 
rules. Societies for play have laws for the conduct of the 
game. War has its laws as well as peace. The fights of 
boxers, wrestlers, and such like, are subject to rules. For all 
such cases, the common interest and utility begets a standard 
of right and wrong in those concerned. 

Section V. proceeds to argue Why Utility pleases. How- 
ever powerful education may be in forming men's sentiments, 
there must, in such a matter as morality, be some deep natural 
distinction to work upon. Now, there are only two natural 
sentiments that Utility can appeal to : (1) Self-interest, and 
(2) Generosity, or the interests of others. 

The deduction of morals from Self-Love is obvious, and 
no doubt explains much. An appeal to experience, however, 
shows its defects. We praise virtuous actions in remote ages 
and countries, where our own interests are out of the question. 
Even when we have a private interest in some virtuous action, 
our praise avoids that part of it, and prefers to fasten on what 
we are not interested in. When we hear of the details of a 
generous action, we are moved by it, before we know when or 
where it took place. Nor will the force of imagination account 



604 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — HUME. 

for the feeling in those cases ; if we have an eye solely to our 
own real interest, it is not conceivable how we can be moved 
by a mere imaginary interest. 

But another view may be taken. Some have maintained 
tbat the public interest is our own interest, and is therefore 
promoted by our self-love. The reply is that the two are 
often opposed to each other, and still we approve of the pref- 
erence of the public interest. We are, therefore, driven to 
adopt a more public affection, and to admit that the interests 
of society, on their own account, are not indifferent to us. 

Have we any difficulty to comprehend the force of hu- 
manity or benevolence ? Or to conceive that the very aspect 
of happiness, joy, prosperity, gives pleasure; while pain, 
suffering, sorrow, communicate uneasiness? Here we have 
an unmistakeable, powerful, universal sentiment of human 
nature to build upon. 

The author gives an expanded illustration of the workings 
of Benevolence or Sympathy, which well deserves to be read 
for its merits of execution. We must here content ourselves 
with stating that it is on this principle of disinterested action, 
belonging to our nature, that he founds the chief part of our 
sentiment of Moral Approbation. 

Section VI. takes into the account Qualities useful to 
ourselves. We praise in individuals the qualities useful to 
themselves, and are pleased with the happiness flowing to 
individuals by their own conduct. This can be no selfish 
motive on our part. For example, Discretion, so necessary to 
the accomplishing of any useful enterprise, is commended; 
that measured union of enterprise and caution found in great 
commanders, is a subject of highest admiration; and why? 
For the usefulness, or the success that it brings. What need 
is there to display the praises of Industry, or of Frugality, 
virtues useful to the possessor in the first instance ? Then 
the qualities of Honesty, Fidelity, and Truth, are praised, in 
the first place, for their tendency to the good of society ; and, 
being established on that foundation, they are also approved 
as advantageous to the individual's own self. A part of our 
blame of Unchastity in a woman is attached to its imprudence 
with reference to the opinion regarding it. Strength of 
Mind being to resist present care, and to maintain the search 
of distant profit and enjoyment, is another quality of great 
value to the possessor. The distinction between the Fool 
and the Wise man illustrates the same position. In our 
approbation of all such qualities, it is evident that the hap- 



AGREEABLE QUALITIES. 605 

piness and misery of others are not indifferent spectacles to 
us : the one, like sunshine, or the prospect of well-cultivated 
plains, imparts joy and satisfaction ; the other, like a lowering 
cloud or a barren landscape, throws a damp over the spirits. 

He next considers the influence of bodily endowments 
and the goods of fortune as bearing upon the general 
question. 

Even in animals, one great source of beauty is the suit- 
ability of their structure to their manner of life. In times 
when bodily strength in men was more essential to a warrior 
than now, it was held in so much more esteem. Impotence 
in both sexes, and barrenness in women, are generally con- 
temned, for the loss of human pleasure attending them. 

As regards fortune, how can we account for the regard 
paid to the rich and powerful, but from the reflexion to the 
mind of prosperity, happiness, ease, plenty, authority, and the 
gratification of every appetite. Rank and family, although 
they may be detached from wealth and power, had originally 
a reference to these. 

In Section VII., Hume treats of Qualities immediately 
agreeable to ourselves. "Dnder this head, he dilates on the 
influence of Cheerfulness, as a social quality : on Greatness of 
Mind, or Dignity of Character ; on Courage ; on Tranquillity, 
or equanimity of mind, in the midst of pain, sorrow, and 
adverse fortune ; on Benevolence in the aspect of an agree- 
able spectacle ; and lastly, on Delicacy of Taste, as a merit. 
As manifested to a beholder, all these qualities are engaging 
and admirable, on account of the immediate pleasure that they 
communicate to the person possessed of them. They are 
farther testimonies to the existence of social sympathy, and 
to the connexion of that with our sentiment of approbation 
towards actions or persons. 

Section VIII. brings forward the Qualities immediately 
agreeable to others. These are Good Manners or Politeness ; 
the Wit or Ingenuity that enlivens social intercourse ; 
Modesty, as opposed to impudence, arrogance, and vanity; 
Cleanliness, and Graceful Manner ; all which are obviously 
valued for the pleasures they communicate to people generally. 
Section IX. is the Conclusion. Whatever may have been 
maintained in systems of philosophy, he contends that in 
common life the habitual motives of panegyric or censure are 
of the kind described by him. He will not enter into the 
question as to the relative shares of benevolence and self-love 
in the human constitution. Let the generous sentiments be 



606 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — HUME. 

ever so weak, they still direct a preference of what is service- 
able to what is pernicious ; and on these preferences a moral 
distinction is founded. In the notion of morals, two things 
are implied ; a sentiment common to all mankind, and a senti- 
ment whose objects comprehend all mankind ; and these two 
requisites belong to the sentiment of humanity or benevolence. 
Another spring of our constitution, that brings a great 
addition # of force to moral sentiment, is Love of Fame. The 
pursuit of a character, name, and reputation in the world, 
leads to a habit of surveying our own actions, begets a rever- 
ence for self as well as others, and is thus the guardian of 
every virtue. Humanity and Love of Reputation combine to 
form the highest type of morality yet conceived. 

The nature of moral approbation being thus solved, there 
remains the nature of obligation ; by which the author means 
to enquire, if a man having a view to his own welfare, will 
not find his best account in the practice of every moral virtue. 
He dwells upon the many advantages of social virtue, of 
benevolence and friendship, humanity and kindness, of truth 
and honesty ; but confesses that the rule that ' honesty is the 
best policy' is liable to many exceptions. He makes us 
acquainted with his own theory of Happiness. How little is 
requisite to supply the necessities of nature ? and what com- 
parison is there between, on the one hand, the cheap plea- 
sures of conversation, society, study, even health, and, on the 
other, the common beauties of nature, with self-approbation; 
and the feverish, empty amusements of luxury and expense ? 

Thus ends the main treatise ; but the author adds, in an 
Appendix, four additional dissertations. 

The first takes up the question started at the outset, but 
postponed, how far our moral approbation is a matter of 
reason, and how far of sentiment. His handling of this topic 
is luminous and decisive. 

If the utility of actions be a foundation of our approval of 
them, reason must have a share, for no other faculty can trace 
the results of actions in their bearings upon human happi- 
ness. In Justice especially, there are often numerous and 
complicated considerations ; such as to occupy the delibera- 
tions of politicians and the debates of lawyers. 

On the other hand, reason is insufficient of itself to con- 
stitute the feeling of moral approbation or disapprobation. 
Heason shows the means to an end ; but if we are otherwise 
indifferent to the end, the reasonings fall inoperative on the 
mind. Here then a sentiment must display itself, a delight 



KEASON INSUFFICIENT. 607 

in the happiness of men, and a repugnance to what causes 
them misery. Reason teaches the consequences of actions ; 
Humanity or Benevolence is roused to make a distinction in 
favour of such as are beneficial. 

He adduces a number of illustrations to show that reason 
alone is insufficient to make a moral sentiment. He bids us 
examine Ingratitude, for instance ; good offices bestowed on 
one side, ill-will on the other. Reason might say, whether a 
certain action, say the gift of money, or an act of patronage, 
was for the good of the party receiving it, and whether the 
circumstances of the gift indicated a good intention on the 
part of the giver ; it might also say, whether the actions of the 
person obliged were intentionally or consciously hurtful or 
wanting in esteem to the person obliging. But when all this 
is made out by reason, there remains the sentiment of abhor- 
rence, whose foundations must be in the emotional part of our 
nature, in our delight in manifested goodness, and our abhor- 
rence of the opposite. 

He refers to Beauty or Taste as a parallel case, where 
there may be an operation of the intellect to compute propor- 
tions, but where the elegance or beauty must arise in the 
region of feeling. Thus, while reason conveys the knowledge 
of truth and falsehood, sentiment or emotion must give beauty 
and deformity, vice and virtue. 

Appendix No. II. is a discussion of Self-love. The author 
adverts first to the position that benevolence is a mere pre- 
tence, a cheat, a gloss of self-love, and dismisses it with a 
burst of indignation. He next considers the less offensive 
view, that all benevolence and generosity are resolvable in 
the last resort into self-love. He does not attribute to the 
holders of this opinion any laxity in their own practice of 
virtue, as compared with other men. Epicurus and his fol- 
lowers were no strangers to probity ; Atticus and Horace 
were men of generous dispositions ; Hobbes and Locke were 
irreproachable in their lives. These men all allowed that 
friendship exists without hypocrisy; but considered that, by 
a sort of mental chemistry, it might be made out self-love, 
twisted and moulded by a particular turn of the imagination. 
But, says Hume, as some men have not the turn of imagina- 
tion, and others have, this alone is quite enough to make the 
widest difference of human characters, and to stamp one man 
as virtuous and humane, and another vicious and meanly inter- 
ested. The analysis in no way sets aside the reality of moral 
distinctions. The question is, therefore, purely speculative. 



608 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— HUME. 

As a speculation, it is open to these objections. (1) Being 
contrary to the unprejudiced notions of mankind, it demands 
some very powerful aid from philosophy. On the face of 
things, the selfish passions and the benevolent passions are 
widely distinguished, and no hypothesis has ever yet so far 
overcome the disparity as to show that the one could grow 
out of the other ; we may discern in the attempts that love of 
simplicity \ which has done so much harm to philosophy. 

The Animals are susceptible of kindness ; shall we then 
attribute to them, too, a refinement of self-interest ? Again, 
what interest can a fond mother have in view who loses her 
health in attendance on a sick child, and languishes and dies 
of grief when relieved from the slavery of that attendance ? 

(2) But farther, the real simplicity lies on the side of inde- 
pendent and disinterested benevolence. There are bodily 
appetites that carry us to their objects before sensual enjoy- 
ment ; hunger and thirst have eating and drinking for their 
end ; the gratification follows, and becomes a secondary desire. 
[A very questionable analysis.] So there are mental passions, 
as fame, power, vengeance, that urge us to act, in the first 
instance ; and when the end is attained, the pleasure follows. 
Now, as vengeance may be so pursued as to make us neglect 
ease, interest, and safety, why may we not allow to humanity 
and friendship the same privileges ? [This is Butler, improved 
in the statement.] 

Appendix III. gives some farther considerations with re- 
gard to Justice. The point of the discussion is to show that 
Justice differs from Generosity or Beneficence in a regard to 
distant consequences, and to General Rules. The theme is 
handled in the author's usual happy style, but contains nothing 
special to him. He omits to state what is also a prime attri- 
bute of Justice, its being indispensable to the very existence 
of society, which cannot be said of generosity apart from its 
contributing to justice. 

Appendix IV. is on some Verbal Disputes. He remarks 
that, neither in English nor in any other modern tongue, is 
the boundary fixed between virtues and talents, vices and 
defects ; that praise is given to natural endowments, as well 
as to voluntary exertions. The epithets intellectual and moral 
do not precisely divide the virtues ; neither does the contrast 
of head and heart; many virtuous qualities partake of both 
ingredients. So the sentiment of conscious worth, or of its 
opposite, is affected by what is not in our power, as well as by 
what is ; by the goodness or badness of our memory, as well 



VARIETIES OF MORAL SENTIMENT. 609 

as by continence or dissoluteness of conduct. Without endow- 
ments of the understanding, the best intentions will not 
procure esteem. 

The ancient moralists included in the virtues what are 
obviously natural endowments. Prudence, according to Cicero, 
involved sagacity or powers of judgment. In Aristotle, we 
find, among the virtues, Courage, Temperance, Magnanimity, 
Modesty, Prudence, and manly Openness, as well as Justice 
and Friendship. Epictetus puts people on their guard against 
humanity and compassion. In general, the difference of volun- 
tary and involuntary was little regarded in ancient ethics. 
This is changed in modern times, by the alliance of Ethics 
with Theology. The divine has put all morality on the foot- 
ing of the civil law, and guarded it by the same sanctions of 
reward and punishment ; and consequently must make the 
distinction of voluntary and involuntary fundamental. 

Hume also composed a dialogue, to illustrate, in his light 
and easy style, the great variety, amounting almost to opposi- 
tion, of men's moral sentiments in different ages. This may 
seem adverse to his principle of Utility, as it is to the doctrine 
of an Intuitive Sense of Bight and Wrong. He allows, how- 
ever, for the different ways that people may view Utility, 
seeing that the consequences of acting are often difficult to 
estimate, and people may agree in an end without agreeing in 
the means. Still, he pays too little attention to the sentimental 
likings and dislikings that frequently overbear the sense of 
Utility ; scarcely recognizing it, except in one passage, where 
he dwells on the superstitions that mingle with a regard to 
the consequences of actions in determining right. 

We shall now repeat the leading points of Hume's system, 
in the usual order. 

I. — The Standard of Right and Wrong is Utility, or a refer- 
ence to the Happiness of mankind. This is the ground, as 
well as the motive, of moral approbation. 

II. — As to the nature of the Moral Faculty, he contends 
that it is a compound of Beason, and Humane or Generous 
Sentiment. 

He does not introduce the subject of Free-will into Morals. 

He contends strongly for the existence of Disinterested 
Sentiment, or Benevolence ; but scarcely recognizes it as 
leading to absolute and uncompensated self-sacrifice. He 
does not seem to see that as far as the approbation of benevo- 
lent actions is concerned, we are anything but disinterested 
parties. The good done by one man is done to some others ; 
39 



610 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— PRICK 

and the recipients are moved by their self-love to encourage 
beneficence. The regard to our own benefactor makes all 
benefactors interesting. 

III. — He says little directly bearing on the constituents of 
Human Happiness ; but that little is all in favour of simplicity 
of life and cheap pleasures. He does not reflect that the plea- 
sures singled out by him are far from cheap ; ' agreeable con- 
versation, society, study, health, and the beauties of nature,' 
although not demanding extraordinary wealth, cannot be 
secured without a larger share of worldly means than has 
ever fallen to the mass of men in any, community. 

IV.— As to the substance of the Moral Code, he makes no 
innovations. He talks somewhat more lightly of the evils of 
Unchastity than is customary; but regards the prevailing 
restraints as borne out by Utility. 

The inducements to virtue are, in his view, our humane 
sentiments, on the one hand, and our self-love, or prudence, 
on the other ; the two classes of motives conspiring to pro- 
mote both our own good and the good of mankind. 

V. — The connexion of Ethics with Politics is not specially 
brought out. The political virtues are moral virtues. He 
does not dwell upon the sanctions of morality, so as to dis- 
tinguish the legal sanction from the popular sanction. He 
draws no line between Duty and Merit. 

VI. — He recognizes no relationship betw r een Ethics and 
Theology. The principle of Benevolence in the human mind 
is, he thinks, an adequate source of moral approbation and 
disapprobation ; and he takes no note of what even sceptics 
(Gibbon, for example) often dwell upon, the aid of the Theo- 
logical sanction in enforcing duties imperfectly felt by the 
natural and unprompted sentiments of the mind. 

RICHARD PRICE. (1723-1791.) 

Price's work is entitled, ' A Review of the principal ques- 
tions in Morals ; particularly those respecting the Origin of 
our Ideas of Virtue, its Nature, Relation to the Deity, Obli- 
gation, Subject-matter, and Sanctions.' In the third edition, 
he added an Appendix on ' the Being and Attributes of the 
Deity.' 

The book is divided into ten chapters. 

Chapter I. is on the origin of our Ideas of Right and 
Wrong. The actions of moral agents, he says, give rise in us 
to three different perceptions : 1st, Right and Wrong ; 2nd, 



IDEAS OF RIGHT AND WRONG. 611 

Beauty and Deformity ; 3rd, Good or 111 Desert. It is the 
first of these perceptions that he proposes mainly to consider. 

He commences by quoting Hutcheson's doctrine of a 
Moral Sense, which he describes as an implanted and arbitrary 
principle, imparting a relish or disrelish for actions, like the 
sensibilities of the various senses. On this doctrine, he 
remarks, the Creator might have annexed the same sentiments 
to the opposite actions. Other schemes of morality, such as 
Self-love, Positive Laws and Compacts, the Will of the 
Deity, he dismisses as not meeting the true question. 

The question, as conceived by him, is, c What is the power 
within us that perceives the distinctions of Right and Wrong? ' 
The answer is, The Understanding. 

To establish this position, he enters into an enquiry into 
the distinct provinces of Sense and of Understanding in the 
origin of our ideas. It is plain, he says, that what judges 
concerning the perceptions of the senses, and contradicts 
their decisions, cannot itself be sense, but must be some 
nobler faculty. Likewise, the power that views and compares 
the objects of all the senses cannot be sense. Sense is a mere 
capacity of being passively impressed ; it presents particular 
forms to the mind, and is incapable of discovering general 
truths. It is the understanding that perceives order or pro- 
portion ; variety and regularity ; design, connexion, art, and 
power; aptitudes, dependence, correspondence, and adjust- 
ment of parts to a whole or to an end. He goes over our 
leading ideas in detail, to show that mere sense cannot furnish 
them. Thus, Solidity, or Impenetrability, needs an exertion 
of reason; we must compare instances to know that two 
atoms of matter cannot occupy the same space. Vis Inertias 
is a perception of the reason. So Substance, Duration, Space, 
Necessary Existence, Power, and Causation involve the under- 
standing. Likewise, that all Abstract Ideas whatsoever require 
the understanding is superfluously proved. The author 
wonders, therefore, that his position in this matter should not 
have been sooner arrived at. 

The tracing of Agreement and of Disagreement, which are 
functions of the Understanding, is really the source of simple 
ideas. Thus, Equality is a simple idea originating in this 
source ; so are Proportion, Identity and Diversity, Existence, 
Cause and Effect, Power, Possibility and Impossibility: and 
(as he means ultimately to show) Right and Wrong. 

Although the author's exposition is not very lucid, his 
main conclusion is a sound one. Sense, in its narrowest 



612 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— PRICE. 

acceptation, gives particular impressions and experiences of 
Colour, Sound, Touch, Taste, Odour, &c. The Intellectual 
functions of Discrimination and Agreement are necessary as a 
supplement to Sense, to recognize these impressions as differ- 
ing and agreeing, as Equal or Unequal ; Proportionate or 
Disproportionate ; Harmonious or Discordant. And farther, 
every abstract or general notion, — colours in the abstract, 
sweetness, pungency, &c.— supposes these powers of the 
understanding in addition to the recipiency of the senses. 

To apply this to Bight and Wrong, the author begins by 
affirming [what goes a good way towards begging the ques- 
tion] that right and wrong are simple ideas, and therefore the 
result of an immediate power, of perception in the human 
mind. Beneficence and Cruelty are indefinable, and therefore 
ultimate. There must be some actions that are in the last 
resort an end in themselves. This being assumed, the author 
contends that the power of immediately perceiving these 
ultimate ideas is the Understanding. Shaftesbury had con- 
tended that, because the perception of right and wrong was 
immediate, therefore it must reside in a special Sense. The 
conclusion, thinks Price, was, to say the least of it, hasty ; for 
it does not follow that every immediate perception should 
reside in a special sensibility or sense. He puts it to each 
one's experience whether, in conceiving Gratitude or Benefi- 
cence to be right, one feels a sensation merely, or performs an 
act of understanding, f Would not a Being purely intelligent, 
having happiness within his reach, approve of securing it for 
himself? Would he not think this right; and would it not 
be right ? When we contemplate the happiness of a species, cr 
of a world, and pronounce on the actions of reasonable beings 
which promote it, that they are right, is this judging errone- 
ously? Or is it no determination of the judgment at all, bat 
a species of mental taste [as Shaftesbury and Hutcheson sup- 
posed] ? [As against a moral sense, this reasoning may be 
effective ; but it obviously assumes an end of desire, — happi- 
ness for self, or for others — and yet does not allow to that end 
aoy share in making up the sense of right and wrong.] Every 
one, the author goes on to say, must desire happiness for 
himself; and our rational nature thenceforth must approve of 
the actions for promoting happiness, and disapprove of 
the contrary actions. Surely the understanding has some 
share in the revulsion that we feel when any one brings upon 
himself, or upon others, calamity and ruin. A being flattered 
with hopes of bliss and then plunged into torments would 



MORALITY DETERMINED BY THE UNDERSTANDING. 613 

complain justly ; he would consider that violence had been 
done to a perception of the human understanding. 

He next brings out a metaphysical difficulty in applying 
right and wrong to actions, on the supposition that they are 
mere effects of sensation. All sensations, as such, are modes 
of consciousness, or feelings, of a sentient being, and must be 
of a nature different from their causes. Colour is in the mind, 
not an attribute of the object ; but right and wrong are quali- 
ties of actions, of objects, and therefore must be ideas, not 
sensations. Then, again, there can be nothing true or untrue 
in a sensation ; all sensations are alike just ; while the moral 
rectitude of an action is something absolute and unvarying. 
Lastly, all actions have a nature, or character ; something 
truly belonging to them, and truly affirmable of them. If 
actions have no character, then they are all indifferent ; but 
this no one can affirm ; we all strongly believe the contrary. 
Actions are not indifferent. They are good or bad, better or 
worse. And if so, they are declared such by an act of judg- 
ment, a function of the understanding. 

The author, considering his thesis established, deduces 
from it the corollary, that morality is eternal and immutable. 
As an object of the Understanding, it has an invariable 
essence. No will, not even Omnipotence, can make things 
other than they are. Right and wrong, as far as they express 
the real characters of actions, must immutably and necessarily 
belong to the actions. By action, is of course understood not 
a bare external effect, but an effect taken along with its prin- 
ciple or rule, the motives or reasons of the being that performs 
it. The matter of an action being the same, its morality 
reposes upon the end or motive of the agent. Nothing can be 
obligatory in us that was not so from eternity. The will of 
God could not make a thing right that was not right in its 
own nature. 

The author closes his first chapter with a criticism of the 
doctrine of Protagoras — that man is the measure of all things 
— interpreting it as another phase of the view that he is com- 
bating. 

Although this chapter is but a small part of the work, it 
completes the author's demonstration of his ethical theory. 

Chapter II. is on ' our Ideas of the Beauty and Deformity 
of Actions.' By these are meant our pleasurable and painful 
sentiments, arising from the consideration of moral right and 
wrong, expressed by calling some actions amiable, and others 
odious, shocking, vile. Although, in this aspect of actions, 



614 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — PRICE. 

it would seem that the reference to a sense is the suitable ex- 
planation, he still contends for the intervention of the Under- 
standing. The character of the Deity must appear more 
amiable the better it is known and understood. A reasonable 
being, without any special sensibilities, but knowing what 
order and happiness are, would receive pleasure from the con- 
templation of a universe where order prevailed, and pain from 
a prospect of the contrary. To behold virtue is to admire her ; 
to perceive vice is to be moved to condemnation. There must 
always be a consideration of the circumstances of an action, 
and this involves intellectual discernment. 

The author now qualifies his doctrine by the remark, that 
to some superior beings the intellectual discernment may 
explain the whole of the appearances, but inferior natures, 
such as the human, are aided by instinctive determinations. 
Our appetites and passions are too strong for reason by itself, 
especially in early years. Hence he is disposed to conclude 
that 6 in contemplating the actions of moral agents, we have 
both a perception of the understanding and a feeling of the heart;' 
but that this feeling of the heart, while partly instinctive, is 
mainly a sense of congruity and incongruity in actions. The 
author therefore allows something to innate sense, but differs 
from Shaftesbury, who makes the whole a matter of intuitive 
determination. 

Chapter III. relates to the origin of our Desires and 
Affections, by which he means more especially Self-love and 
Benevolence. His position here is that Self-love is the essence 
of a Sensible being, Benevolence the essential of an Intelligent 
being. By the very nature of our sensitive constitution, we 
cannot but choose happiness for self; and it is only an act of 
intellectual consistency to extend the same measure to others. 
The same qualification, however, is made as to the insufficiency 
of a mere intellectual impulse in this matter, without consti- 
tutional tendencies. These constitutional tendencies the 
author considers as made up of our Appetites and Passions, 
while our Affections are founded on our rational nature. 
Then follow a few observations in confirmation of Butler's 
views as to the disinterested nature of our affections. 

Chapter IV. is on our Ideas of good and ill Desert. These 
are only a variety of our ideas of right and wrong, being the 
feelings excited towards the moral Agent. Our reason deter- 
mines, with regard to a virtuous agent, that he ought to be 
the better for his virtue. The ground of such determination, 
however, is not solely that virtuous conduct promotes the 



MOKAX ATTRIBUTES OF THE DEITY. 615 

happiness of mankind, and vice detracts from it ; this counts 
for much, but not for all. Virtue is in itself rewardable; 
vice is of essential demerit. Our understanding recognizes 
the absolute and eternal rectitude, the intrinsic fitness of the 
procedure in both aspects. 

Chapter V. is entitled ' Of the Reference of Morality to 
the Divine Nature ; the Rectitude of our Faculties ; and the 
Grounds of Belief.' The author means to reply to the objec- 
tion that his system, in setting up a criterion independent of 
God, is derogatory to the Divine nature. He urges that there 
must be attributes of the Deity, independent of his will ; as 
his Existence, Immensity, Power, Wisdom; that Mind sup- 
poses Truth apart from itself; that without moral distinctions 
there could be no Moral Attributes in the Deity. Certain 
things are inherent in his Nature, and not dependent on his 
will. There is a limit to the -universe itself ; two infinities of 
space or of duration are not possible. The necessary good- 
ness of the divine nature is a part of necessary truth. Thus, 
morality, although not asserted to depend on the will of the 
Deity, is still resolvable into his nature. In all this, Price 
avowedly follows Cudworth. 

He then starts another difficulty. May not our faculties 
be mistaken, or be so constituted as to deceive us ? To which 
he gives the reply, made familiar to us by Hamilton, that the 
doubt is suicidal : the faculty that doubts being itself under 
the same imputation. Nay, more, a being cannot be made 
such as to be imposed on by falsehood ; what is false is 
nothing. As to the cases of actual mistake, these refer to 
matters attended with some difficulty ; and it does not follow 
that we must be mistaken in cases that are clear. 

He concludes with a statement of the ultimate grounds of 
our belief. These are, (1) Consciousness or Feeling, as in 
regard to our own existence, our sensations, passions, &c; 
(2) Intuition, comprising self-evident truths ; and (3) Deduc- 
tion, or Argumentation. He discusses under these the exist- 
ence of a material world, and affirms that we have an Intuition 
that it is possible. 

Chapter VI. considers Fitness and Moral Obligation, and 
other prevailing forms of expression regarding morality. 
Fitness and Unfitness denote Congruity or Incongruity, and 
are necessarily a perception of the Understanding. 

The term Obligation is more perplexing. Still, it is but 
another name for Tightness. What is Right is, by that very 
fact, obligatory. Obligation, therefore, cannot be the creature 



616 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— PRICE. 

of law, for law may command what is morally wrong. The 
will of God enforced by rewards and punishments cannot 
make right ; it would only determine what is prudent. Re- 
wards and punishments do not make obligation, but suppose 
it. Rectitude is a Law, the authoritative guide of a rational 
being. It is Supreme, universal, unalterable, and indispen- 
sable. Self- valid and self-originated, it stands on immovable 
foundations. Being the one authority in nature, it is, in 
short, the Divine authority. Even the obligations of religion 
are but branches of universal rectitude. The Sovereign 
Authority is not the mere result of his Almighty Power, but 
of this conjoined with his necessary perfections and infinite 
excellence. 

He does not admit that obligation implies an obliger. 

He takes notice of the objection that certain actions may 
be right, and yet we are not bound to perform them ; such are 
acts of generosity and kindness. But his answer throws no 
farther light on his main doctrine. 

In noticing the theories of other writers in the same vein, 
as Wollaston, he takes occasion to remark that, together with 
the perception of conformity or fitness, there is a simple 
immediate perception urging us to act according to that 
fitness, for which no farther reason can be assigned. When 
we compare innocence and eternal misery, we are struck with 
the idea of unsuitableness, and are inspired in consequence 
with intense repugnance. 

Chapter VII. discusses the Heads or Divisions of Virtue ; 
under which he enquires first what are virtuous actions ; 
secondly, what is the true principle or motive of a virtuous 
agent ; and thirdly, the estimate of the degrees of virtue. 

He first quotes Butler to show that all virtue is not 
summed up in Benevolence ; repeating that there is an in- 
trinsic rectitude in keeping faith ; and giving the usual argu- 
ments against Utility, grounded on the supposed crimes that 
might be committed on this plea. He is equally opposed to 
those that would deny disinterested benevolence, or would 
resolve beneficence into veracity. He urges against Hutcheson, 
that, these being independent and distinct virtues, a distinct 
sense would be necessary to each ; in other words, we should, 
for the whole of virtue, need a plurality of moral senses. 

His classification of Virtue comprehends (1) Duty to God, 
which he dilates upon at some length. (2) Duty to Ourselves, 
wherein he maintains that our sense of self-interest is not 
enough for us. (3) Beneficence, the Good of others. (4) Grati- 



I 



PRACTICAL MORALITY. 617 

tilde. (5) Veracity, which he inculcates with great earnest- 
ness, adverting especially to impartiality and honesty in onr 
enquiries after truth. (6) Justice, which he treats in its appli- 
cation to the Rights of Property. He considers that the 
difficulties in practice arise partly from the conflict of the 
different heads, and partly from the different modes of apply- 
ing the same principles ; which he gives as an answer to the 
objection from the great differences of men's moral sentiments 
and practices. He allows, besides, that custom, education, 
and example, may blind and deprave our intellectual and 
moral powers ; but denies that the whole of our notions and 
sentiments could result from education. No amount of depra- 
vity is able utterly to destroy our moral discernment. 

Chapter VIIL treats of Intention as an element in virtuous 
action. He makes a distinction between Virtue in the 
Abstract and Virtue in Practice, or with reference to all the 
circumstances of the agent. A man may do abstract wrong, 
through mistake, while as he acts with his best judgment and 
with upright intentions, he is practically right. He grounds 
on this a powerful appeal against every attempt at dominion 
over conscience. The requisites of Practical Morality are (1) 
Liberty, or Free-will, on which he takes the side of free-agency. 
(2) Intelligence, without which there can be no perception of 
good and evil, and no moral agency. (3) The Consciousness 
of Rectitude, or Righteous Intention. On this he dwells at 
some length. No action is properly the action of a moral 
agent unless designed by him. A virtuous motive is essential 
to virtue. On the question — Is Benevolence a virtuous motive? 
he replies : Not the Instinctive benevolence of the parent, but 
only Rational benevolence ; which he allows to coincide with 
rectitude. Reason presiding over Self-love renders it a virtuous 
principle likewise. The presence of Reason in greater or less 
degree is the criterion of the greater or less virtue of any 
action. 

Chapter IX. is on the different Degrees of Virtue and Vice, 
and the modes of estimating them ; the Difficulties attending 
the Practice of Virtue ; the use of Trials, and the essentials of 
a good or a bad Character. The considerations adduced are 
a number of perfectly well-known maxims on the practice of 
morality, and scarcely add anything to the elucidation of the 
author's Moral Theory. The concluding chapter, on Natural 
Religion, contains nothing original. 

To sum up the views of Price : — 

I. — As regards the Moral Standard, he asserts that a percep- 



618 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— PRICE. 

tion of the Reason or the Understanding, — a sense of fitness or 
congrnity "between actions and the agents, and all the circum- 
stances attending them, — is what determines Right and Wrong. 

He finds it impracticable to maintain his position without 
sundry qualifications, as we have seen. Virtue is naturally 
adapted to please every observing mind ; vice the contrary. 
Right actions must be grateful, wrong ungrateful to us. To 
behold virtue is to admire her. In contemplating the actions 
of moral agents, we have both a perception of the under- 
standing and a feeling of the heart. He thus re-admits an 
element of feeling,, along with the intellect, in some undefined 
degree ; contending only that all morality is not to be resolved 
into feeling or instinct. We have also noticed another singu- 
lar admission, to the effect that only superior natures can dis- 
cover virtue by the understanding. Reason alone, did we 
possess it in a high degree, would answer all the ends of the 
passions. Parental affection would be unnecessary, if parents 
were sufficiently alive to the reasons of supporting the young, 
and were virtuous enough to be always determined by them. 

Utility, although not the sole ground of Justice, is yet ad- 
mitted to be one important reason or ground of many of its 
maxims. 

II.— The nature of the Moral Faculty, in Price's theory, 
is not a separate question from the standard, but the same 
question. His discussion takes the form of an enquiry into 
the Faculty : — 'What is the power within us that perceives 
the distinctions of Right and Wrong ? ? The two questions 
are mixed up throughout, to the detriment of precision in the 
reasoning- 

With his usual facility of making concessions to other 
principles, he says it is not easy to determine how far our 
natural sentiments may be altered by custom, education, and 
example : while it would be unreasonable to conclude that all 
is derived from these sources. That part of our moral 
constitution depending on instinct is liable to be corrupted 
by custom and education to almost any length ; but the most 
depraved can never sink so low as to lose all moral dis- 
cernment, all ideas of just and unjust ; of which he offers the 
singular proof that men are never wanting in resentment when 
they are themselves the objects of ill-treatment. 

As regards the Psychology of Disinterested Aetion, ha pro- 
vides nothing but a repetition of Butler (Chapter III.) and a 
vague assertion of the absurdity of denying disinterested 
benevolence. 



WORKINGS OF SYMPATHY. 619 

III. — On Human Happiness, he has only a few general 
remarks. Happiness is an object of essential and eternal 
value. Happiness is the end, and the only end, conceivable 
by us, of God's providence and government ; but He pursues 
this end in subordination to rectitude. Virtue tends to 
happiness* but does not always secure it. A person that 
sacrifices his life rather than violate his conscience, or betray 
his country, gives up all possibility of any present reward, 
and loses the more in proportion as his virtue is more glorious. 

Neither on the Moral Code, nor in the relations of Ethics 
to Politics and to Theology, are any further remarks on 
Price called for. 

ADAM SMITH. [1723-90.] 

The ' Theory of the Moral Sentiments * is a work of great 
extent and elaboration. It is divided into five Parts ; each 
part being again divided into Sections, and these subdivided 
into Chapters. 

Part I. is entitled, Of the Propriety of Action. Section 
I. is, I Of the Sense of Propriety* Propriety is his word for 
Rectitude or Right. 

Chapter I., entitled, l Of Sympathy,' is a felicitous illus- 
tration of the general nature and workings of Sympathy. 
He calls in the experience of all mankind to attest the 
existence of our sympathetic impulses. He shows through 
what medium sympathy operates ; namely, by our placing 
ourselves in the situation of the other party, and imagining 
what we should feel in that case. He produces the most 
notable examples of the impressions made on us by our 
witnessing the actions, the pleasurable and the painful ex- 
pression of others ; effects extending even to fictitious repre- 
sentations. He then remarks that,, although on some occasions, 
we take on simply and purely the feelings manifested in our 
presence, — the grief or joy of another man, yet this is far from 
the universal case : a display of angry passion may produce 
in us hostility and disgust; but this very result may be 
owing to our sympathy for the person likely to suffer from 
the anger. So our sympathy for grief or for joy is imperfect 
until we know the cause, and may be entirely suppressed. 
We take the whole situation into view, as well as the expression 
of the feeling. Hence we often feel for another person what 
that person does not feel for himself; we act out our own 
view of the situation, not his. We feel for the insane what 
they do not feel ; we sympathize even with the dead. 






620 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — ADAM SMITH. 

Chapter II. is ' Of the Pleasure of Mutual Sympathy.* It 
contains illustrations of the delight that we experience in the 
sympathy of others ; we being thereby strengthened in our plea- 
sures and relieved in our miseries. He observes that we 
demand this sympathy more urgently for our painful emotions 
than for such as are pleasurable ; we are especially intolerant 
of the omission of our friends to join in our resentments. On 
the other hand, we feel pleasure in the act of sympathizing, 
and find in that a compensation for the pain that the sight of 
pain gives us. Still, this pleasure may be marred if the other 
party's own expression of grief or of joy is beyond what we 
think suitable to the situation. 

Chapter III. considers t the manner of our judging of the 
propriety of other men's affections by their consonance with 
our own.' The author illustrates the obvious remark, that 
we approve of the passions of another, if they are such as we 
ourselves should feel in the same situation. We require that 
a man's expression and conduct should be suitable to the 
occasion, according to our own standard of judging, namely, 
our own procedure in such cases. 

Chapter IV. continues the subject, and draws a distinction 
between two cases; the case where the objects of a feeliug do 
not concern either ourselves or the person himself, and the 
case where they do concern one or other. The first case is 
shown in matters of taste and science, where we derive 
pleasure from sympathy, but yet can tolerate difference. The 
other case is exemplified in our personal fortunes ; in these, we 
cannot endure any one refusing us their sympathy. Still, it 
is to be noted that the sympathizer does not fully attain the 
level of the sufferer ; hence the sufferer, aware of this, and 
desiring the satisfaction of a full accord with his friend, tones 
down his own vehemence till it can be fully met by the other ; 
which very circumstance is eventually for his own good, and 
adds to, rather than detracts from, the tranquillizing influence 
of a friendly presence. We sober down our feelings still more 
before casual acquaintance and strangers ; and hence the 
greater equality of temper in the man of the world than in 
the recluse. 

Chapter V. makes an application of these remarks to ex- 
plain the difference between the Amiable and the Respectable 
Virtues. The soft, the gentle, and the amiable qualities are 
manifested when, as sympathizers, we enter fully into the 
expressed sentiments of another ; the great, the awful and 
respectable virtues of self-denial, are shown when the princi- 



THE PASSIONS AS CONSISTENT WITH PKOPKIETT. 621 

pal person concerned brings down his own case to the level 
that the most ordinary sympathy can easily attain to. The 
one is the virtne of giving much, the other of expecting little. 

Section II. is ' Of the Degrees of the different passions which 
are consistent with propriety' Under this head he reviews the 
leading passions, remarks how far, and why, we can sympa- 
thize with each. 

Chapter I. is on the Passions having their origin in the 
body. We can sympathize with hunger to a certain limited 
extent, and in certain circiimstances ; bnt we can rarely 
tolerate any very prominent expression of it. The same 
limitations apply to the passion of the sexes. We partly 
sympathize with bodily pain, bnt not with the violent expres- 
sion of it. These feelings are in marked contrast to the 
passions seated in the imagination : wherein our appetite for 
sympathy is complete ; disappointed love or ambition, loss of 
friends or of dignity, are suitable to representation in art. 
On the same principle, we can sympathize with danger ; as 
regards oar power of conceiving, we are on a level with the 
sufferer. From our inability to enter into bodily pain, we the 
more admire the man that can bear it with firmness. 

Chapter II. is on certain Passions depending on a peculiar 
turn of the Imagination. Under this he exemplifies chiefly 
the situation of two lovers, with whose passion, in its inten- 
sity, a third person cannot sympathize, although one may enter 
into the hopes of happiness, and into the dangers and calami- 
ties often flowing from it. 

Chapter III. is on the Unsocial Passions. These neces- 
sarily divide our sympathy between him that feels them and 
him that is their object. Resentment is especially hard to 
sympathize with. We may ourselves resent wrong done to 
another, but the less so that the sufferer strongly resents it. 
Moreover, there is in the passion itself an element of the dis- 
agreeable and repulsive ; its manifestation is naturally dis- 
tasteful. It may be useful and even necessary, but so is a 
prison, which is not on that account a pleasant object. In 
order to make its gratification agreeable, there must be many 
well known conditions and qualifications attending it. 

Chapter IV. gives the contrast of the Social Passions. It 
is with the humane, the benevolent sentiments, that our sym- 
pathy is unrestricted and complete. Even in their excess, 
they never inspire aversion. 

Chapter V. is on the Selfish Passions. He supposes these, 
in regard to sympathy, to hold a middle place between the 



622 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— ADAM SMITH. 

social and the unsocial. We sympathize with small joys and 
with great sorrows ; and not with great joys (which dispense 
with our aid, if they do not excite our envy) or with small 
troubles. 

Section III. considers the effects of prosperity and adversity 
upon the judgments of mankind regarding propriety of action. 

Chapter I. puts forward the proposition that our sympathy 
with sorrow, although more lively than our sympathy with 
joy, falls short of the intensity of feeling in the person con- 
cerned. It is agreeable to sympathize with joy, and we do so 
with the heart ; the painfulness of entering into grief and 
misery holds us back. Hence, as he remarked before, the 
magnanimity and nobleness of the man that represses his 
woes, and does not exact our compassionate participation. 

Chapter II. inquires into the origin of Ambition, and of 
the distinction of Ranks. Proceeding upon the principle just 
enounced, that mankind sympathize with joy rather than with 
sorrow, the author composes an exceedingly eloquent homily 
on the worship paid to rank and greatness. 

Chapter III., in continuation of the same theme, illustrates 
the corruption of our moral sentiments, arising from this 
worship of the great. ■ We frequently see the respectful 
attentions of the world more strongly directed towards the 
rich and the great, than towards the wise and the virtuous.' 
' The external graces, the frivolous accomplishments of that 
impertinent and foolish thing called a man of fashion, are 
commonly more admired than the solid and masculine virtues 
of a warrior, a statesman, a philosopher, or a legislator.' 

Part II. is Of Merit and Demerit ; or op the objects op 
Reward and Punishment. It consists of three Sections. 
Section I. is, Of the Sense of Merit and Demerit, 
Chapter I. maintains that whatever appears to be the 
proper object of gratitude, appears to deserve reward ; and 
that whatever appears to be the proper object of resentment, 
appears to deserve punishment. The author distinguishes 
between gratitude and mere love or liking ; and, obversely, 
between resentment and hatred. Love makes us pleased to 
see any one promoted ; but gratitude urges us to be ourselves 
the instrument of their promotion. 

Chapter II. determines the proper objects of Gratitude and 
Resentment, these being also the proper objects of Reward 
and Punishment respectively. ' These, as well as all the 
other passions of human nature, seem proper, and are approved 
of, when the heart of every impartial spectator entirely sympathizes 



MERIT AND DEMERIT. 623 

with them, when every indifferent by-stander entirely enters 
into, and goes along with them.' In short, a good moral 
decision is obtained by the unanimous vote of all impartial 
persons. 

This view is in accordance with the course taken by the 
mind in the two contrasting situations. In sympathizing with 
the joy of a prosperous person, we approve of his complacent 
and grateful sentiment towards the author of his prosperity ; 
we make his gratitude our own : in sympathizing with sorrow, 
we enter into, and approve of, the natural resentment towards 
the agent causing it. 

Chapter III. remarks that where we do not approve of the 
conduct of the person conferring the benefit, we have little 
sympathy with the gratitude of the receiver ; we do not 
care to enter into the gratitude of the favourites of profligate 
monarchs. 

Chapter IV. supposes the case of our approving strongly 
the conduct and the motives of a benefactor, in which case we 
sympathize to a corresponding degree with the gratitude of 
the receiver. 

Chapter V. sums up the analysis of the Sense of Merit and 
of Demerit thus : — The sense of Merit is a compound senti- 
ment, made up of two distinct emotions ; a direct sympathy 
with the sentiments of the agent (constituting the propriety 
of the action), and an indirect sympathy with the gratitude of 
the recipient. The sense of Demerit includes a direct anti- 
pathy to the sentiments of the agent, and an indirect sym- 
pathy with the resentment of the sufferer. 

Section II. is Of Justice and Beneficence. 

Chapter I. compares the two virtues. Actions of a bene- 
ficent tendency, from proper motives, seem alone to require a 
reward ; actions of a hurtful tendency, from improper motives, 
seem alone to deserve punishment. It is the nature of Bene- 
ficence to be free ; the mere absence of it does not expose to 
punishment. Of all the duties of beneficence, the one most 
allied to perfect obligation is gratitude ; but although we talk 
of the debt of gratitude (we do not say the debt of charity}, 
we do not punish ingratitude. 

Resentment, the source of punishment, is given for defence 
against positive evil ; we employ it not to extort benefits, but to 
repel injuries. Now, the injury is the violation of Justice. 
The sense of mankind goes along with the employment of 
violence to avenge the hurt done by injustice, to prevent the 
injury, and to restrain the offender. Beneficence, then, is the 



624 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — ADAM SMITH. 

subject of reward ; and the want of it is not the subject of 
punishment. There may be cases where a beneficent act is 
compelled by punishment, as in obliging a father to support 
his family, or in punishing a man for not interfering when 
another is in danger ; but these cases are immaterial excep- 
tions to the broad definition. He might have added, that in 
cases where justice is performed under unusual difficulties, 
and with unusual fidelity, our disposition would be not 
merely to exempt from punishment, but to reward. 

Chapter II. considers the sense of Justice, Remorse, and 
the feeling of Merit. 

Every man is recommended by nature to his own care, 
being fitter to take care of himself than of another person. 
We approve, therefore, of each one seeking their own good ; 
but then it must not be to the hurt of any other being. The 
primary feeling of self-preservation would not of itself, how- 
ever, be shocked at causing injury to our fellows. It is when 
we pass out of this point of view, and enter into the mental 
state of the spectator of our actions, that we feel the sense of 
injustice and the sting of Remorse. Though it may be true that 
every individual in his own breast prefers himself to man- 
kind, yet he dares not look mankind in the face, and avow 
that he acts on this principle. A man is approved when he 
outstrips his fellows in a fair race ; he is condemned when he 
jostles or trips up a competitor unfairly. The actor takes 
home to himself this feeling ; a feeling known as Shame, 
Dread of Punishment, and Remorse. 

So with the obverse. He that performs a generous action 
can realize the sentiments of the by-stander, and applaud 
himself by sympathy with the approbation of the supposed 
impartial judge. This is the sense of Merit. 

Chapter III. gives reflections upon the utility of this con- 
stitution of our nature. Human beings are dependent upon 
one another for mutual assistance, and are exposed to mutual 
injuries. Society might exist without love or beneficence, 
but not without mutual abstinence from injury. Beneficence 
is the ornament that embellishes the building ; Justice the 
main pillar that supports it. It is for the observance of 
Justice that we need that consciousness of ill-desert, and those 
terrors of mental punishment, growing out of our sympathy 
with the disapprobation of our fellows. Justice is necessary 
to the existence of society, and we often defend its dictates on 
that ground ; but, without looking to such a remote and com- 
prehensive end, we are plunged into remorse for its violation 



INFLUENCE OF FORTUNE ON MEKIT AND DEMERIT. 625 

by the shorter process of referring to the censure of a sup- 
posed spectator [in other words, to the sanction of public 
opinion]. 

Section III. — Of the influence of Fortune upon the senti- 
ments of mankind, with regard to the Merit and the Demerit of 
actions. 

Every voluntary action consists of three parts : — (1) the 
Intention or motive, (2) the Mechanism, as when we lift the 
hand, and give a blow, and (3) the Consequences. It is, in 
principle, admitted by all, that only the first, the Intention, 
can be the subject of blame. The Mechanism is in itself 
indifferent. So the Consequences cannot be properly imputed 
to the agent, unless intended by him. On this last point, 
however, mankind do not always adhere to their general 
maxim ; when they come to particular cases, they are in- 
fluenced, in their estimate of merit and demerit, by the actual 
consequences of the action. 

Chapter L considers the causes of this influence of Fortune. 
Gratitude requires, in the first instance, that some pleasure 
should have been conferred ; Resentment pre-supposes pain. 
These passions require farther that the object of them should 
itself be susceptible of pleasure and pain ; they should be 
human beings or animals. Thirdly, It is requisite that they 
should have produced the effects from a design to do so. 
Now, the absence of the pleasurable consequences intended by 
a beneficent agent leaves out one of the exciting causes of 
gratitude, although including another ; the absence of the 
painful consequences of a maleficent act leaves out one of 
the exciting causes of resentment ; hence less gratitude seems 
due in the one, and less resentment in the other. 

Chapter II. treats of the extent of this influence of Fortune. 
The effects of it are, first, to diminish, in our eyes, the merit 
of laudable, and the demerit of blameable, actions, when they 
fail of their intended effects ; and, secondly, to increase the 
feelings of merit and of demerit beyond what is due to the 
motives, when the actions chance to be followed by extra- 
ordinary pleasure or pain. Success enhances our estimate of 
all great enterprises ; failure takes off the edge of our resent- 
ment ©f great crimes. 

The author thinks (Chapter III.) that final causes can be 
assigned for this irregularity of Sentiments. In the first 
place, it would be highly dangerous to seek out and to resent 
mere bad intentions. In the next place, it is desirable that 
beneficent wishes should be put to the proof by results. And, 
40 



626 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — ADAM SMITH. 

lastly, as regards the tendency to resent evil, although un- 
intended, it is good to a certain extent that men should be 
taught intense circumspection on the point of infringing 
one another's happiness. 

Part III. is entitled Of the Foundation of our judgments 
concerning our own sentiments and conduct, and of the 
Sense of Duty. 

Chapter I. is ' Of the Principle of Self-approbation and of 
Self- disapprobation.' Having previously assigned the origin 
of our judgments respecting others, the author now proceeds 
to trace out our judgments respecting ourselves. The explana- 
tion is still the same. We approve or disapprove of our own 
conduct, according as we feel that the impartial spectator 
would approve or disapprove of it. 

To a solitary human being, moral judgments would never 
exist. A man would no more think of the merit and demerit 
of his sentiments than of the beauty or deformity of his own 
face. Such criticism is exercised first upon other beings ; but 
the critic cannot help seeing that he in his turn is criticised, 
and he is thereby led to apply the common standard to his 
own actions ; to divide himself as it were into two persons — 
the examiner or judge, and person examined into, or judged 
of. He knows what conduct of his will be approved of by 
others, and what condemned, according to the standard he 
himself employs upon others ; his concurrence in this appro- 
bation or disapprobation is self-approbation or self- disapproba- 
tion. The happy consciousness of virtue is the consciousness 
of the favourable regards of other men. 

Chapter II. is ' Of the love of Praise, and of Praise- 
worthiness ; the dread of Blame, and of Blame-worthiness ; : 
a long and important chapter. The author endeavours to 
trace, according to his principle of sympathy, the desire of 
Praise-worthiness, as well as of Praise. We approve certain 
conduct in others, and are thus disposed to approve the same 
conduct in ourselves : what we praise as judges of our fellow- 
men, we deem praise-worthy, and aspire to realize in our own 
conduct. Some men may differ from us, and may withhold 
that praise ; we may be pained at the circumstance, but we 
adhere to our love of the praise-worthy, even when it does 
not bring the praise. When we obtain the praise we are 
pleased, and strengthened in our estimate ; the approbation 
that we receive confirms our self- approbation, but does not 
give birth to it. In short, there are two principles at work 
within us. We are pleased with approbation, and pained by 



INFLUENCE AND AUTHORITY OF CONSCIENCE. 627 

reproach : we are farther pleased if the approbation coin- 
cides with what we approve when we are ourselves acting as 
judges of other men. The two dispositions vary in their 
strength in individuals, confirming each other when in 
concert, thwarting each other when opposed. The author 
has painted a number of striking situations arising out of 
their conflict. He enquires why we are more pained by un- 
merited reproach, than lifted up by unmerited approbation ; 
and assigns as the reason that the painful state is more 
pungent than the corresponding pleasurable state. He shows 
how those men whose productions are of uncertain merit, as 
poets, are more the slaves of approbation, than the authors of 
unmistakeable discoveries in science. In the extreme cases 
of unmerited reproach, he points out the appeal to the all- 
seeing Judge of the world, and to a future state rightly con- 
ceived; protesting, however, against the view that would 
reserve the celestial regions for monks and friars, and condemn 
to the infernal, all the heroes, statesmen, poets, and philo- 
sophers of former ages ; all the inventors of the useful arts ; 
the protectors, instructors, and benefactors of mankind ; and 
all those to whom our natural sense of praise-worthiness 
forces us to ascribe the highest merit and most exalted virtue. 
Chapter III. is ' On the influence and authority of Con- 
science ;' another long chapter, occupied more with moral 
reflections of a practical kind than with the following out of 
the analysis of our moral sentiment. Conceding that the testi- 
mony of the supposed impartial spectator does not of itself 
always support a man, he yet asserts its influence to be great, 
and that by it alone we can see what relates to ourselves in 
the proper shape and dimensions. It is only in this way that 
we can prefer the interest of many to the interest of one ; the 
interest of others to our own. To fortify us in this hard 
lesson two different schemes have been proposed; one to 
increase our feelings for others, the other to diminish our 
feelings for ourselves. The first is prescribed by the whining 
and melancholy moralists, who will never allow us to be 
happy, because at every moment many of our fellow-beings 
are in misery. The second is the doctrine of the Stoics, who 
annihilate self-interest in favour of the vast commonwealth 
of nature ; on that the author bestows a lengthened comment 
and correction, founded on his theory of regulating the mani- 
festations of joy or grief by the light of the impartial judge. 
He gives his own panacea for human misery, namely, the 
power of nature to accommodate men to their permanent situ- 



628 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— ADAM SMITH. 

ation, and to restore tranquillity, which is the one secret of 
happiness. 

Chapter IV. handles Self-Deceit, and the Origin and Use 
of General Rules. The interference of our passions is the 
great obstacle to our holding towards ourselves the position 
of an impartial spectator. From this notorious fact the author 
deduces an argument against a special moral faculty, or moral 
sense ; he says that if we had such a faculty, it would surely 
judge our own passions, which are the most clearly laid open 
to it, more correctly than the passions of others. 

To correct our self-partiality and self-deceit is the use of 
general rules. Our repeated observations on the tendency of 
particular acts, teach us what is fit to be done generally ; and 
our conviction of the propriety of the general rules is a power- 
ful motive for applying them to our own case. It is a mistake 
to suppose, as some have done, that rules precede experience ; 
on the contrary, they are formed by finding from experience 
that all actions of a certain kind, in certain circumstances, are 
approved of. When established, we appeal to them as stan- 
dards of judgment in right and wrong, but they are not the 
original judgments of mankind, nor the ultimate foundations 
of moral sentiment. 

Chapter V. continues the subject of the authority and in- 
fluence of General Rules, maintaining that they are justly 
regarded as laws of the Deity. The grand advantage of 
general rules is to give steadiness to human conduct, and to 
enable us to resist our temporary varieties of temper and dis- 
position. They are thus a grand security for human duties. 
That the important rules of morality should be accounted laws 
of the Deity is a natural sentiment. Men have always ascribed 
to their deities their own sentiments and passions ; the deities 
held by them in special reverence, they have endowed with 
their highest ideal of excellence, the love of virtue and bene- 
ficence, and the abhorrence of vice and injustice. The re- 
searches of philosophical inquiry confirmed mankind in the 
supposition that the moral faculties carry the badge of autho- 
rity, that they were intended as the governing principles of 
our nature, acting as the vicegerents of the Deity. This 
inference is confirmed by the view that the happiness of men, 
and of other rational creatures, is the original design of the 
Author of nature, the only purpose reconcilable with the 
perfections we ascribe to him. 

Chapter VI. is on the cases where the Sense of Duty 
should be the sole motive of conduct ; and on those where it 



THE EFFECT OF UTILITY ON MORAL APPROBATION. 629 



ought to join with other motives. Allowing the import- 
ance of religion among human motives, he does not concur 
with the view that would make religious considerations the 
sole laudable motives of action. The sense of duty is not the 
only principle of our conduct ; it is the ruling or governing 
one. It may be a question, however, on what occasions we 
are to proceed strictly by the sense of duty, and on what 
occasions give way to some other sentiment or affection. The 
author answers that in the actions prompted by benevolent 
affections, we are to follow out our sentiments as much as 
our sense of duty ; and the contrary with the malevolent 
passions. As to the selfish passions, we are to follow duty in 
small matters, and self-interest in great. But the rules of 
duty predominate most in cases where they are determined 
with exactness, that is, in the virtue of Justice. 

Part IV. Of the effect of Utility upon the Sentiment 
of Approbation. 

Chapter I. is on the Beauty arising out of Utility. It is 
here that the author sets forth the dismal career of ' the poor 
man's son, whom heaven in the hour of her anger has curst 
with ambition,' and enforces his favourite moral lesson of 
contentment and tranquillity. 

Chapter II. is the connexion of Utility with Moral Appro- 
bation. There are many actions possessing the kind of beauty 
or charm arising from utility ; and hence, it may be main- 
tained (as was done by Hume) that our whole approbation of 
virtue may be explained on this principle. And it may be 
granted that there is a coincidence between our sentiments 
of approbation or disapprobation, and the useful or hurtful 
qualities of actions. Still, the author holds that this utility 
or hurtfulness is not the foremost or principal source of our 
approbation. In the first place, he thinks it incongruous that 
we should have no other reason for praising a man than for 
praising a chest of drawers. In the next place, he contends at 
length that the usefulness of a disposition of mind is seldom 
the first ground of our approbation. Take, for example, the 
qualities useful to ourselves — reason and self-command ; we 
approve the first as just and accurate, before we are aware of 
its being useful ; and as to self-command, we approve it quite 
as much for its propriety as for its utility ; it is the coincidence 
of our opinion with the opinion of the spectator, and not an 
estimate of the comparative utility, that affects us. Regarding 
the qualities useful to others — humanity, generosity, public 
spirit and justice — he merely repeats his own theory that they 



630 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— ADAM SMITH. 

are approved by our entering into the view of the impartial 
spectator. The examples cited only show that these virtues 
are not approved from self-interest ; as when the soldier throws 
away his life to gain something for his sovereign. He also 
puts the case of a solitary human being, who might see fitness 
in actions, but could not feel moral approbation. 

Part V. The influence of Custom on the Moral Senti- 
ments. The first chapter is a pleasing essay on the influence 
of custom and fashion on manners, dress, and in Fine Art 
generally. The second chapter makes the application to our 
moral sentiments. Although custom will never reconcile us to 
the conduct of a Nero or a Claudius, it will heighten or blunt 
the delicacy of our sentiments on right and wrong. The fashion 
of the times of Charles II. made dissoluteness reputable, and 
discountenanced regularity of conduct. There is a custom- 
ary behaviour that we expect in the old and in the young, 
in the clergyman and in the military man. The situations of 
different ages and countries develop characteristic qualities — 
endurance in the savage, humanity and softness in the civilized 
community. But these are not the extreme instances of the 
principle. We find particular usages, where custom has ren- 
dered lawful and blameless actions, that shock the plainest 
principles of right and wrong; the most notorious and universal 
is infanticide. 

Paet VI. The character of Virtue. 

Section I is on Frudence, and is an elegant essay on the 
heau ideal of the prudential character. Section II. considers 
character as affecting other people. Chapter I. is a disquisition 
on the comparative priority of the objects of our regard. 
After self, which must ever have the first place, the members 
of our own family are recommended to our consideration. 
Remoter connexions of blood are more or less regarded 
according to the customs of the country ; in pastoral countries 
clanship is manifested ; in commercial countries distant rela- 
tionship becomes indifferent. Official and business connexions, 
and the association of neighbourhood, determine friendships. 
Special estimation is a still preferable tie. Favours received 
determine and require favours in return. The distinction of 
ranks is so far founded in nature as to deserve our respect. 
Lastly, the miserable are recommended to our compassion. 
Next, as regards societies (Chap. II.), since our own country 
stands first in our regard, the author dilates on the virtues of 
a good citizen. Finally, although our effectual good offices 
may not extend beyond our country, our good-will may 



THE VIRTUES. 631 

embrace tlie whole universe. This universal benevolence, 
however, the author thinks must repose on the belief in a 
benevolent and all- wise governor of the world, as realized, for 
example, in the meditations of Marcus Antoninus. 

Section III. Of Self-command. On this topic the author 
produces a splendid moral essay, in which he describes the 
various modes of our self- estimation, and draws a contrast 
between pride and vanity. In so far as concerns his Ethical 
theory, he has still the same criterion of the virtue, the degree 
and mode commended by the impartial spectator. 

Part VII. Of Systems of Moral Philosophy. On this 
we need only to remark that it is an interesting and valuable 
contribution to the history and the criticism of the Ethical 
systems.* 

The Ethical theory of Adam Smith may be thus summed 
up :— 

I. — The Ethical Standard is the judgment of an impartial 
spectator or critic ; and our own judgments are derived by 
reference to what this spectator would approve or disapprove. 

Probably to no one has this ever appeared a sufficient 
account of Right and Wrong, It provides against one defect, 
the self-partiality of the agent ; but gives no account whatever 
of the grounds of the critic's own judgment, and makes no 
provision against his fallibility. It may be very well on points 
where men's moral sentiments are tolerably unanimous, but it 

* It is perhaps worth while to quote a sentence or two, giving the 
author's opinion on the theory of the Moral Sense. ' Against every 
account of the principle of approbation, which makes it depend upon a 
peculiar sentiment, distinct from every other, I would object, that it is 
strange that this sentiment, which Providence undoubtedly intended to 
be the governing principle of human nature, should hitherto have been 
so little takeu notice of, as not to have got a name in any language. The 
word Moral Sense is of very late formation, and cannot yet be considered 
as making part of the English tongue. The word approbation has but 
within these few years been appropriated to denote peculiarly anything 
of this kind. In propriety of language we approve of whatever is entirely 
to our satisfaction — of the form of a building, of the contrivance of a 
machine, of the flavour of a dish of meat. The word conscience does not 
immediately denote any moral faculty by which we approve or disapprove. 
Conscience supposes, indeed, the existence of some such faculty, and 
properly signifies our consciousness of having acted agreeably or contrary 
to its directions. When love, hatred, joy, sorrow, gratitude, resentment, 
with so many other passions which are all supposed to be the subjects of 
this principle, have made themselves considerable enough to get titles to 
know them by, is it not surprising that the sovereign of them all should 
hitherto have been so little heeded ; that, a few philosophers excepted, 
nobody has yet thought it worth while to bestow a name upon it ? ' 



632 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— ADAM SMITH. 

is valueless in all questions where there are fundamental 
differences of view. 

II. — In the Psychology of Ethics, Smith would consider the 
moral Faculty as identical with the power of Sympathy, which 
he treats as the foundation of Benevolence. A man is a moral 
being in proportion as he can enter into, and realize, the 
feelings, sentiments, and opinions of others. 

Now, as morality would never have existed but for the 
necessity of protecting one human being against another, the 
power of the mind that adopts other people's interests and 
views must always be of vital moment as a spring of moral 
conduct ; and Adam Smith has done great service in develop- 
ing the workings of the sympathetic impulse. 

He does not discuss Free-will. On the question of Disin- 
terested Conduct, he gives no clear opinion. While denying 
that our sympathetic impulses are a refinement of self-love, he 
would seem to admit that they bring their own pleasure with 
them ; so that, after all, they do not detract from our happi- 
ness. In other places, he recognizes self-sacrifice, but gives 
no analysis of the motives that lead to it ; and seems to think, 
with many other moralists, that it requires a compensation in 
the next world. 

III. — His theory of the constituents of Happiness is 
simple, primitive, and crude, but is given with earnest convic- 
tion. Ambition he laughs to scorn. ' What, he asks, can be 
added to the happiness of the man who is in health, out of 
debt, and has a clear conscience ? ' Again, ' the chief part of 
happiness consists in the consciousness of being beloved, 
hence, sudden changes of fortune seldom contribute to happi- 
ness/ But what he dwells upon most persistently, as the 
prime condition of happiness, is Contentment, and Tranquillity. 

IV. — On the Moral Code, he has nothing peculiar. As to 
the means and inducements to morality, he does not avail 
himself of the fertility of his own principle of Sympathy. 
Appeals to sympathy, and the cultivation of the power of 
entering into the feelings of others, could easily be shown to 
play a high part in efficacious moral suasion. 

V. — He affords little or no grounds for remarking on the 
connexion of Moralhty with Politics. Our duties as citizens 
are a part of Morality, and that is all. 

VI. — He gives his views on the alliance of Ethics with 
Religion. He does not admit that we should refer to the 
Religious sanction on all occasions. He assumes a bene- 
volent and all- wise Governor of the world, who will ultimately 



GKOWTH OF DISINTERESTED FEELING. 633 

redress all inequalities, and remedy all outstanding injustice. 
What this Being approves, however, is to be inferred solely 
from the principles of benevolence. Our regard for him is to 
be shown, not by frivolous observances, sacrifices, ceremonies, 
and vain supplications, but by just and beneficent actions. 
The author studiously ignores a revelation, and constructs for 
himself a Natural Religion, grounded on a benevolent and 
just administration of the universe. 

In Smith's Essay, the purely scientific enquiry is overlaid 
by practical and hortatory dissertations, and by eloquent de- 
lineations of character and of beau-ideals of virtuous conduct. 
His style being thus pitched to the popular key, he never 
pushes home a metaphysical analysis ; so that even his 
favourite theme, Sympathy, is not philosophically sifted to 
the bottom. 

DAVID EIARTLEY. [1705-1757.] 

The ' Observations on Man [ (1749) is the first systematic 
effort to explain the phenomena of mind by the Law of 
Association. It contains also a philosophical hypothesis, that 
mental states are produced by the vibration of infinitesimal par- 
ticles of the nerves. This analogy, borrowed from the undu- 
lations of the hypothetical substance sether, has been censured 
as crude, and has been entirely superseded. But, although 
an imperfect analogy, it nevertheless kept constantly before 
the mind of Hartley the double aspect of all mental pheno- 
mena, thus preventing erroneous explanations, and often 
suggesting correct ones. In this respect, Aristotle and Hobbes 
are the only persons that can be named as equally fortunate. 

The ethical remarks contained in the ' Observations,' 
relate only to the second head of summary, the Psychology of 
Ethics. We shall take, first, the account of disinterestedness, 
and, next, of the moral sense. 

1. Disinterestedness. Under the name Sympathy, Hartley 
includes four kinds of feelings: — (1) Rejoicing at the happi- 
ness of others — Sociality, Good- will, Generosity, Gratitude ; 

(2) Grieving for the misery of others — Compassion, Mercy; 

(3) Rejoicing at the misery of others — Anger, Jealousy, 
Cruelty, Malice ; and (4) Grieving for the happiness of others 
— Emulation, Envy. All these feelings may be shown to 
originate in association. We select as examples of Hartley's 
method, Benevolence and Compassion. Benevolence is the 
pleasing affection that prompts us to act for the benefit of 
others. It is not a primitive feeling ; but grows out of such 



634 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — HARTLEY. 

circumstances as the following. Almost all the pleasures, 
and few, in comparison, of the pains, of children, are caused 
by others ; who are thus, in the course of time, regarded 
with pleasure, independently of their usefulness to us. 
Many of our pleasures are enjoyed along with, and are 
enhanced by, the presence of others. This tends to make us 
more sociable. Moreover, we are taught and required to put 
on the appearance of good- will, and to do kindly actions, and 
this may beget in us the proper feelings. Finally y we must 
take into account the praise and rewards of benevolence, 
together with the reciprocity of benefits that we may justly 
expect. All those elements may be so mixed and blended as 
to produce a feeling that shall teach us to do good to others 
without any expectation of reward, even that most refined 
recompense — the pleasure arising from a beneficent act. 
Thus Hartley conceives that he both proves the existence of 
disinterested feeling, and explains the manner of its develope- 
ment. 

His account of Compassion is similar. In the young, the 
signs and appearances of distress excite a painful feeling, by 
recalling their own experience of misery. In the old, the 
connexion between a feeling and its adjuncts has been 
weakened by experience. Also, when children are brought 
up together, they are often annoyed by the same things, and 
this tends powerfully to create a fellow-feeling. Again, when 
their parents are ill, they are taught to cultivate pity, and 
are also subjected to unusual restraints. All those things 
conspire to make children desire to remove the sufferings of. 
others. Various circumstances increase the feeling of pity, as 
when the sufferers are beloved by us, or are morally good. 
It is confirmatory of this view, that the most compassionate 
are those whose nerves are easily irritable, or whose ex- 
perience of affliction has been considerable. 

2. — The Moral Sense. Hartley denies the existence of any 
moral instinct, or any moral judgments, proceeding upon the 
eternal relations of things. If there be such, let instances of 
them be produced prior to the influence of associations. Still, 
our moral approbation or disapprobation is disinterested, and 
has a factitious independence. (1) Children are taught what 
is right and wrong, and thus the associations connected with 
the idea of praise and blame are transferred to the virtues 
inculcated and the vices condemned. (2) Many vices and 
virtues, such as sensuality, intemperance, malice, and the 
opposites, produce immediate consequences of evil and good 



THE MORAL SENSE. 635 

respectively. (3) The benefits, immediate or (at least) 
obvious, flowing from the virtues of others, kindle love 
towards them, and thereafter to the virtues they exhibit. 
(4) Another consideration is the loveliness of virtue, arising 
from the suitableness of the virtues to each other, and to the 
beauty, order, and perfection of the world. (5) The hopes 
and fears connected with a future life, strengthen the feelings 
connected with virtue. (6) Meditation upon God and prayer 
have a like effect. ' All the pleasures and pains of sensation, 
imagination, ambition (pride and vanity), self-interest, sym- 
pathy, and theopathy (affection towards God), as far as they 
are consistent with one another, with the frame of our natures, 
and with the course of the world, beget in us a moral sense, 
and lead us to the love and approbation of virtue, and to the 
fear, hatred, and abhorrence of vice. This moral sense, 
therefore, carries its own authority with it, inasmuch as it is 
the sum total of all the rest, and the ultimate result from 
them; and employs the whole force and authority of the 
whole nature of man against any particular part of it that 
rebels against the determinations and commands of the con- 
science or moral judgment.' 

Hartley's analysis of the moral sense is a great advance 
upon Hobbes and Mandeville, who make self-love the imme- 
diate constituent, instead of a remote cause, of conscience. 
Our moral consciousness may thus be treated as peculiar and 
distinguishable from other mental states, while at the same 
time it is denied to be unique and irresolvable. 

THOMAS EEID.* [1710-96.] 

Reid's Ethical views are given in his Essays on the Active 
Powers of the Mind. 

* Adam Ferguson (1724-1816), is not of sufficient importance in purely- 
Ethical theory to demand a full abstract. The following remark on his 
views is made by Professor Veitch : — ' Ferguson, while holding with 
Keid that the notion of Eightness is not resolvable into utility, or to be 
derived from sympathy or a moral sense, goes a step beyond both Keid 
and Stewart in the inquiry which he raises regarding the definite nature 
and ground of Eightness itself.' The following is his definition of Moral 
Good: — ■ Moral good is the specific excellence and felicity of human 
nature, and moral depravity its specific defect and wretchedness.' The 
* excellence ' of human nature consists in four things, drawn out after 
the analogy of the cardinal virtues: (1) Skill (Wisdom); (2) Benevolence, 
the principal excellence of a creature destined to perform a part in 
social life (Justice); (3) Application of mind (Temperance) ; (4) Force, or 
energy to overcome obstacles (Fortitude). Eegarding the motives to 



636 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— REID. 

Essay IIL, entitled The Principles of Action, contains 
(Part III.) a disquisition on the Rational Principles of Action, 
as opposed to what Reid calls respectively Mechanical Prin- 
ciples (Instinct, Habit), and Animal Principles (Appetites, 
Desires, Affections)^ 

The Rational Principles of Action are Prudence, or regard 
to our own good on the whole, and Duty, which, however, he 
does not define by the antithetical circumstance — the \ good 
of others/ The notion of Duty, he says, is too simple for 
logical definition, and can only be explained by synonymes — 
what we ought to do : what is fair and honest ; what is appro v- 
able ; the professed rule of men's conduct ; what all men praise; 
the laudable in itself, though no man praise it. 

Duty, he says, cannot be resolved into Interest. The 
language of mankind makes the two distinct. Disregard of 
our interest is folly; of honour, baseness. Honour is more 
than mere reputation, for it keeps us right when we are 
not seen. This principle of Honour (so-called by men of rank) 
is, in vulgar phrase, honesty, probity, virtue, conscience ; in 
philosophical language, the moral sense, the moral faculty, 
rectitude. 

The principle is universal in men grown up to years 
of understanding. Such a testimony as Hume's may be 
held decisive on the reality of moral distinctions. The 
ancient world recognized it in the leading terms, honestum and 
utile, &c. 

The abstract notion of Duty is a relation between the action 
and the agent. It must be voluntary, and within the power 
of the agent. The opinion (or intention) of the agent gives 
the act its moral quality. 

As to the Sense of Duty, Reid pronounces at once, without 
hesitation, and with very little examination, in favour of an 
original power or faculty, in other words, a Moral Sense. 
Intellectual judgments are judgments of the external senses ; 
moral judgments result from an internal moral sense. The 
external senses give us our intellectual first principles ; the 
moral sense our moral first principles. He is at pains 
to exemplify the deductive process in morals. It is a question 
of moral reasoning, Ought a man to have only one wife ? 

virtue, either virtue is its own reward, or divine rewards and punish- 
ments constitute a sanction; but, in any case, the motive is our own 
happiness. All the virtues enumerated are themselves useful or pleasant, 
but, over and above, they give rise to an additional pleasure, when they 
are made the subject of reflection. 



CONSCIENCE AN ORIGINAL POWER OF THE MIND. 637 

The reasons are, the greater good of the family, and of society 
in general ; but no reason can be given why we should prefer 
greater good ; it is an intuition of the moral sense. 

He sums up the chapter thus : — ' That, by an original 
power of the mind, which we call conscience, or the moral 
faculty, we have the conceptions of right and wrong in human 
conduct, of merit and demerit, of duty and moral obligation, 
and our other moral conceptions ; and that, by the same 
faculty, we perceive some things in human conduct to be 
right, and others to be wrong ; that the first principles of 
morals are the dictates of this faculty ; and that we have the 
same reason to rely upon those dictates, as upon the determi- 
nations of our senses, or of our other natural faculties. 5 
Hamilton remarks that this theory virtually founds morality 
on intelligence. 

Moral Approbation is the affection and esteem accompany- 
ing our judgment of a right moral act. This is in all cases 
pleasurable, but most so, when the act is our own. So, ob- 
versely, for Moral Disapprobation. 

Regarding Conscience, E-eid remarks, first, that like all 
other powers it comes to maturity by insensible degrees, and 
may be a subject of culture or education. He takes no note of 
the difficulty of determining what is primitive and what 
is acquired. Secondly, Conscience is peculiar to man ; it 
is wanting in the brutes. Thirdly, it is evidently intended 
to be the director of our conduct ; and fourthly, it is an Active 
power and an Intellectual power combined. 

Essay IV. is Of the Liberty op Moral Agents, which we 
pass by, having noticed it elsewhere. Essay V. is Of 
Morals. 

Chapter I. professes to enumerate the axiomatic first prin- 
ciples of Morals. Some of these relate (A) to virtue in general : 
as (1) There are actions deserving of praise, and others de- 
serving blame ; (2) the involuntary is not an object of praise 
or blame ; (3) the unavoidable is not an object of praise or 
blame ; (4) omission may be culpable ; (5) we ought to in- 
form ourselves as to duty ; (6) we should fortify ourselves 
against temptation. Other principles relate (B) to particular 
virtues: (1) We should prefer a greater good to a less; (2) 
we should comply with the intention of nature, apparent in 
our constitution ; (3) no man is born for himself alone ; (4) 
we should judge according to the rule, ' Do to others,' &c. ; 
(5) if we believe in God, we should venerate and submit to 
him. A third class" of principles (C) settle the preference 



638 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — REID. 

among opposing virtues. Thus, unmerited generosity should 
yield to gratitude, and both to justice. 

Chapter II. remarks upon the growth and peculiar advan- 
tages of Systems of Morals. Chapter III. is on Systems of 
Natural Jurisprudence. The four subsequent chapters of the 
Essay he states to have been composed in answer to the Ethi- 
cal doctrines of Hurne. 

Chapter IV. enquires whether a moral action must proceed 
from a moral purpose in the agent. He decides in the affir- 
mative, replying to certain objections, and more especially to 
the allegation of Hume, that justice is not a natural, but an 
artificial virtue. This last question is pursued at great length 
in Chapter V., and the author takes occasion to review the 
theory of Utility or Benevolence, set up by Hume as the basis 
of morals. He gives Hume the credit of having made an im- 
portant step in advance of the Epicurean, or Selfish, system, 
by including the good of others, as well as our own good, in 
moral acts. Still, he demands why, if Utility and Virtue are 
identical, the same name should not express both. It is true, 
that virtue is both agreeable and useful in the highest degree ; 
but that circumstance does not prevent it from having a quality 
of its own, not arising from its being useful and agreeable, but 
arising from its being virtue. The common good of society, 
though a pleasing object to all men, hardly ever enters into 
the thoughts of the great majority ; and, if a regard to it were 
the sole motive of justice, only a select number would ever be 
possessed of the virtue. The notion of justice carries inse- 
parably along with it a notion of moral obligation ; and no 
act can be called an act of justice unless prompted by the 
motive of justice. 

Then, again, good music and good cookery have the merit 
of utility, in procuring what is agreeable both to ourselves and 
to society, but they have never been denominated moral virtues ; 
so that, if Hume's system be true, they have been very unfairly 
treated. 

Reid illustrates his positions against Hume to a length 
unnecessary to follow. The objections are exclusively and 
effectively aimed at the two unguarded points of the Utility 
system as propounded by Hume ; namely, first, the not recog- 
nizing moral rules as established and enforced among men by 
the dictation of authority, which does not leave to individuals 
the power of reference to ultimate ends ; and, secondly, the 
not distinguishing between obligatory, and non- obligatory, 
useful acts. 



ARGUMENTS FOR INTUITIVE MORALITY. 639 

Reid continues the controversy, with reference to Justice, 
in Chapter VI., on the Nature and Obligation of a Contract ; 
and in Chapter VII. maintains, in opposition to Hume, that 
Moral approbation implies a Judgment of the intellect, and is 
not a mere feeling, as Hume seems to think. He allows the 
propriety of the phrase c Moral Sentiment/ because ' Senti- 
ment' in English means judgment accompanied with feeling. 
[Hamilton dissents, and thinks that sentiment means the 
higher feelings.] He says, if a moral judgment be no real 
judgment, but only a feeling, morals have no foundation but 
the arbitrary structure of the mind ; there are no immutable 
moral distinctions ; and no evidence for the moral character 
of the Deity. 

We shall find the views of Reid substantially adopted, and 
a little more closely and concisely argued, by Stewart. 

DUGALD STEWART. [1753-1828.] 

In his i Essays on the Active Powers of the Mind/ Stewart 
introduces the Moral Faculty in the same way as Reid. 
Book Second is entitled Our Rational and Governing Prin- 
ciples of Action. Chapter I., on Prudence or Self-love, 
is unimportant for our present purpose, consisting of some 
desultory remarks on the connexion of happiness with steadi- 
ness of purpose, and on the meanings of the words ' self-love ' 
and 5 selfishness.' 

Chapter II. is on the Moral Faculty, and is intended to 
show that it is an original principle of the mind. He first 
replies to the theory that identifies Morality with Prudence, 
or Self-love. His first argument is the existence in all lan- 
guages of different words for duty and for interest. Secondly, 
The emotions arising from the contemplation of right and 
wrong are different from those produced by a regard to our 
own happiness. Thirdly, although in most instances a sense 
of duty, and an enlightened regard to our own happiness, 
would suggest to us the same line of conduct, yet this truth 
is not obvious to mankind generally, who are incapable of 
appreciating enlarged views and remote consequences. He 
repeats the common remark, that we secure our happiness 
best by not looking to it as the one primary end. Fourthly, 
moral judgments appear in children, long before they can 
form the general notion of happiness. His examples of this 
position, however, have exclusive reference to the sentiment 
of pity, which all moralists regard as a primitive feeling, 
while few admit it to be the same as the moral sense. 



640 



ETHICAL SYSTEMS — STEWART. 



He then takes notice of the Association Theory of Hartley, 
Paley, and others, which he admits to be a great refinement 
of the old selfish system, and an answer to one of his argu- 
ments. He maintains, nevertheless, that the others are 
untouched by it, and more especially the third, referring 
to the amount of experience and reflection necessary to dis- 
cover the tendency of virtue to promote our happiness, which 
is inconsistent with the early period when our moral judgments 
appear. [It is singular that he should not have remarked 
that the moral judgments of that early age, if we except what 
springs from the impulses of pity, are wholly communicated 
by others.] He quotes Paley 's reasoning against the Moral 
Sense, and declares that he has as completely mis-stated the 
issue, as if one were to contend that because we are not born 
with the knowledge of light and colours, therefore the sense 
of seeing is not an original part of the frame. [It would be 
easy to retort that all that Paley's case demanded was the 
same power of discrimination in moral judgments, as the power 
of discriminating light and dark belonging to our sense of 
sight.] 

Chapter III. continues the subject, and examines objections. 
The first objection taken up is that derived from the influence 
of education, with which he combines the farther objection (of 
Locke and his followers) arising from the diversity of men's 
moral judgments in various nations. With regard to education, 
he contends that there are limits to its influence, and that 
however it may modify, it cannot create our judgments of 
right and wrong, any more than our notions of beauty and 
deformity. As to the historical facts relating to the diversity 
of moral judgments, he considers it necessary to make full 
allowance for three circumstances — I. — Difference of situation 
with regard to climate and civilization. II. — Diversity of 
speculative opinions, arising from difference of intellectual 
capacity ; and, III. — The different moral import of the same 
action under different systems of behaviour. On the first 
head he explains the indifference to theft from there being 
little or no fixed property ; he adduces the variety of sentiments 
respecting Usury, as having reference to circumstances ; and 
alludes to the differences of men's views as to political assassin- 
ation. On the second head he remarks, that men may agree 
on ends, but may take different views as to means ; they may 
agree in recognizing obedience to the Deity, but differ in their 
interpretations of his will. On the third point, as regards tfce 
different moral import of the same action, he suggests that 



MORAL OBLIGATION 641 

Locke's instance of the killing of aged parents is merely the 
recognized mode of filial affection ; he also quotes the exceed- 
ing variety of ceremonial observances. 

Chapter IV. comments farther on the objections to the 
reality and immutability of moral distinctions and to the 
universal diffusion of the moral faculty. The reference is, in 
the first instance, to Locke, and then to what he terms, after 
Adam Smith, the licentious moralists — La Rochefoucauld and 
Mandeville. The replies to these writers contain nothing 
special to Stewart. 

Chapter V. is the Analysis of our Moral Perceptions and 
Emotions. This is a somewhat singular phrase in an author 
recognizing a separate inborn faculty of Right. His analysis 
consists in a separation of the entire fact into three parts : — 
(1) the perception of an action as right or wrong; (2) an 
emotion of pleasure or pain, varying according to the moral 
sensibility: (3) a perception of the merit or demerit of the 
agent. The first is of course the main question ; and the 
author gives a long review of the history of Ethical doctrines 
from Hobbes downwards, interspersing reflections and criti- 
cisms, all in favour of the intuitive origin of the sense. As 
illustrative parallels, he adduces Personal Identity, Causation, 
and Equality \ all which he considers to be judgments in- 
volving simple ideas, and traceable only to some primitive 
power of the mind. He could as easily conceive a rational 
being formed to believe the three angles of a triangle to be 
equal to one right angle, as to believe that there would be no 
injustice in depriving a man of the fruits of his labours. 

On the second point— the pleasure and pain accompanying 
right and wrong, he remarks on the one-sidedness of systems 
that treat the sense of right and wrong as an intellectual 
judgment purely (Clarke, &c), or those that treat it as a 
feeling purely (Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Hume). His 
remarks on the sense of Merit and Demerit in the agent are 
trivial or commonplace. 

Chapter VI. is ' Of Moral Obligation.' It is needless to 
follow him on this subject, as his views are substantially a 
repetition of Butler's Supremacy of Conscience. At the same 
time, it may be doubted whether Butler entirely and unequi- 
vocally detached this supremacy from the command of the 
Deity, a point peculiarly insisted on by Stewart. His words 
are these : — 

* According to some systems, moral obligation is founded 
entirely on our belief that virtue is enjoined by the command of 
41 



642 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— STEWAKT. 

God. But how\ it may be asked, does this belief impose an obli- 
gation ? Only one of two answers can be given. Either that 
there is a moral fitness that we should conform our will to that of 
the Author and the Governor of the universe ; or that a rational 
self-love should induce us, from motives of prudence, to study 
every means of rendering ourselves acceptable to the Almighty 
Arbiter of happiness and misery. On the first supposition we 
reason in a circle. We resolve our sense of moral obligation into 
our sense of religion, and the sense of religion into that of moral 
obligation. 

' The other system, which makes virtue a mere matter of pru- 
dence, although not so obviously unsatisfactory, leads to conse- 
quences which sufficiently invalidate every argument in its favour. 
Among others it leads us to conclude, 1. That the disbelief of a 
future state absolves from all moral obligation, excepting in so 
far as we find virtue to be conducive to our present interest : 
2. That a being independently and completely happy cannot have 
any moral perceptions or any moral attributes. 

' But farther, the notions of reward and punishment presuppose 
the notions of right and wrong. They are sanctions of virtue, or 
additional motives to the practice of it, but they suppose the 
existence of some previous obligation. 

* In the last place, if moral obligation be constituted by a regard 
to our situation in another life, how shall the existence of a future 
state be proved, or even rendered probable by the light of nature ? 
or how shall we discover what conduct is acceptable to the Deity ? 
The truth is, that the strongest presumption for such a state is 
deduced from our natural notions of right and wrong ; of merit 
and demerit ; and from a comparison between these and the 
general course of human affairs.' 

In a chapter (VII.) entitled - certain principles co-operat- 
ing with our moral powers,' he discusses (1) a regard to 
character, (2) Sympathy, (3) the Sense of the Ridiculous, 
(4) Taste. The important topic is the second, Sympathy ; 
which, psychologically, he would appear to regard as deter- 
mined by the pleasure that it gives. Under this head he 
introduces a criticism of the Ethical theory of Adam Smith ; 
and, adverting to the inadequacy of the theory to distinguish 
the right from the actual judgments of mankind, he remarks 
on Smith's ingenious fiction ' of an abstract man within the 
breast \ and states that Smith' laid much greater stress on 
this fiction in the last edition of the Moral Sentiments 
published before his death. It is not without reason that 
Stewart warns against grounding theories on metaphorical 
expressions, such as this of Smith, or the Platonic Common- 
wealth of the Soul. 

In Book IV. of the Active Powers, Stewart discusses our 



DUTIES. — HAPPINESS. 643 

Duties to Men, — both our fellow- creatures and ourselves. 
Our duties to our fellows are summed up in Benevolence, 
Justice, and Veracity. He devotes a chapter to each. In 
Chapter I., on Benevolence, he re-opens the consideration of 
the Ethical systems founded on Benevolence or Utility, and 
argues against them ; but merely repeats the common-place 
objections — the incompetency of individuals to judge of remote 
tendencies, the pretext that would be afforded for the worst 
conduct, and each one's consciousness that a sense of duty is 
different from enlightened benevolence. 

Chapter II. is on Justice ; defined as the disposition that 
leads a man, where his own interests or passions are con- 
cerned, to act according to the judgment he would form of 
another man's duty in his situation. He introduces a criti- 
cism on Adam Smith, and re-asserts the doctrine of an innate 
faculty, explained as the power of forming moral ideas, and 
not as the innate possession of ideas. For the most part, his 
exposition is didactic and desultory, with occasional discus- 
sions of a critical and scientific nature ; as, for example, some 
remarks on Hume's theory that Justice is an artificial virtue, 
an account of the basis of Jurisprudence, and a few observa- 
tions on the Right of Property. 

In Chapter III., on Veracity, he contends that considera- 
tions of utility do not account for the whole force of our 
approbation of this virtue. [So might any one say that con- 
siderations of what money can purchase do not account for the 
whole strength of avarice]. 

In Chapter IV. he deals with Duties to ourselves, and 
occupies the chapter with a dissertation on Happiness. He 
first gives an account of the theories of the Stoics and the 
Epicureans, which connect themselves most closely with the 
problem of Happiness ; and next advances some observations 
of his own on the subject. 

His first remark is on the influence of the Temper, by 
which he means the Resentful or Irascible passion, on Happi- 
ness, As against a censorious disposition, he sets up the 
pleasure of the benevolent sentiments ; he enjoins candour 
with respect to the motives of others, and a devoted attach- 
ment to truth and virtue for their intrinsic excellence ; and 
warns us, that the causes that alienate our affections from our 
fellow- creatures, suggest gloomy and Hamlet-like conceptions 
of the order of the universe. 

He next adverts to the influence of the Imagination on 
Happiness. On this, he has in view the addition made to 



644 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — STEWART. 

our enjoyments or our sufferings by the respective pre- 
dominance of hope or of fear in the mind. Allowing for 
constitutional bias, he recognizes, as the two great sources of 
a desponding imagination, Superstition and Scepticism, whose 
evils he descants upon at length. He also dwells on the 
influence of casual associations on happiness, and commends 
this subject to the care of educators ; giving, as an example, 
the tendency of associations with Greece and Rome to add to 
the courage of the classically educated soldier. 

His third position is the Influence of our Opinions on 
Happiness. He here quotes, from Ferguson, examples of 
opinions unfavourable to Happiness ; such as these : ' that 
happiness consists in having nothing to do,' i that anything is 
preferable to happiness,' ' that anything can amuse us better 
than our duties/ He also puts forward as a happy opinion 
the Stoical view, ' I am in the station that God has assigned 
me.' [It must be confessed, however, that these prescriptions 
savour of the Platonic device of inculcating opinions, not 
because of their truth, but because of their supposed good 
consequences otherwise : a proceeding scarcely compatible 
with an Ethical system that proclaims veracity as superior to 
utility. On such a system, we are prohibited from looking 
to anything in an opinion but its truth ; we are to suffer for 
truth, and not to cultivate opinions because of their happy 
results.] 

Stewart remarks finally on the influence of the Habits, on 
which he notices the power of the mind to accommodate 
itself to circumstances, and copies Paley's observations on the 
setting of the habits. 

In continuation of the subject of Happiness, he presents a 
classification of our most important pleasures. We give the 
heads, there being little to detain us in the author's brief 
illustration of them. I. — The pleasures of Activity and 
Repose ; II. — The pleasures of Sense ; III. — The pleasures of 
the Imagination ; IV. — The pleasures of the Understanding ; 
and V. — The pleasures of the Heart, or of the various bene- 
volent affections. He would have added Taste, or Fine Art, 
but this is confined to a select few. 

In a concluding chapter (V.), he sums up the general 
result of the Ethical enquiry, under the title, * the Nature 
and Essence of Virtue.' No observation of any novelty 
occurs in this chapter. Virtue is doing our duty ; the inten- 
tions of the agent are to be looked to ; the enlightened dis- 
charge of our duty often demands an exercise of the Reason 



SUMMARY OF VIEWS. 645 

to adjudge between conflicting claims ;! there is a close rela- 
tionship, not defined, between Ethics acid Politics. 

The views of Stewart represent, in the chief points, al- 
though not in all, the Ethical theory that has found the 
greatest number of supporters. 

I. — The Standard is internal, or intuitive — the judgments 
of a Faculty, called the Moral Faculty. He does not approve 
of the phrase 'Moral Sense,' thinking the analogy of the 
senses incorrect. 

II. — As regards Ethical Psychology, the first question is 
determined by the remarks on the Standard. 

On the second question, Free-will, Stewart maintains 
Liberty. 

On the third question, he gives, like many others, an 
uncertain sound. In his account of Pity, he recognizes three 
things, (1) a painful feeling, (2) a selfish desire to remove the 
cause of the uneasiness, (3) a disposition grounded on bene- 
volent concern about the sufferer. This is at best vague. 
Equally sp is what he states respecting the pleasures of sym- 
pathy and benevolence (Book II., Chapter VII.). There is, 
he says, a pleasure attached to fellow-feeling, a disposition to 
accommodate our minds to others, wherever there is a bene- 
volent affection ; and, in all probability, the pleasure of 
sympathy is the pleasure of loving and of being beloved. 
No definite proposition can bo gathered from such loose 
allegations. 

III. — We have already abstracted his chapter on Happiness. 

IV. — On the Moral Code, he has nothing peculiar. 

V. — On the connexion with Religion, we have seen that 
he is strenuous in his antagonism to the doctrine of the 
dependence of morality on the will of God. But, like other 
moralists of the same class, he is careful to add : — i Although 
religion can with no propriety be considered as the sole foun- 
dation of morality, yet when we are convinced that God is 
infinitely good, and that he is the friend and protector of 
virtue, this belief affords the most powerful inducements 
to the practice of every branch of our duty.' He has (Book 
III.) elaborately discussed the principles of Natural Religion, 
but, like Adam Smith, makes no reference to the Bible, or to 
Christianity. He is disposed to assume the benevolence of 
the Deity, but considers that to affirm it positively is to go 
beyond our depth. 



646 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — BKOWN. 

THOMAS BROWN. [1778-1820.] 

Brown's Ethical discussion commences in the 73rd of his 
Lectures. He first criticises the multiplicity of expressions used 
in the statement of the fundamental question of morals — 'What 
is it that constitutes the action virtuous? 9 'What constitutes 
the moral obligation to perform certain actions ? ' ' What con- 
stitutes the merit of the agent ? ' — These have been considered 
questions essentially distinct, whereas they are the very same 
question. There is at bottom but one emotion in the case, 
the emotion of approbation, or of disapprobation, of an agent 
acting in a certain way. 

In answer then to the question as thus simplified, ' What 
is the ground of moral approbation and disapprobation ? ' 
Brown answers — a simple emotion of the mind, of which no 
farther explanation can be given than that we are so consti- 
tuted. Thus, without using the same term, he sides with the 
doctrine of the Innate Moral Sense. He illustrates it by 
another elementary fact of the mind, involved in the concep- 
tion of cause and effect on his theory of that relation — the 
belief that the future will resemble the past. Excepting a 
teleogical reference to the Supreme Benevolence of the Deity, 
he admits no farther search into the nature of the moral 
sentiment. 

He adduces, as another illustration, what he deems the 
kindred emotion of Beauty. Our feeling of beauty is not the 
mere perception of forms and colours, or the discovery of the 
uses of certain combinations of forms ; it is an emotion arising 
from these, indeed, but distinct from them. Our feeling of 
moral excellence, in like manner, is not the mere perception 
of different actions, or the discovery of the physical good that 
these may produce ; it is an emotion sui generis, superadded 
to them. 

He adverts, in a strain of eloquent indignation, to the 
objection grounded on differences of men's moral judg- 
ment. There are philosophers, he exclaims, 'that can turn 
away from the conspiring chorus of the millions of mankind, 
in favour of the great truths of morals, to seek in some savage 
island, a few indistinct murmurs that may seem to be dis- 
cordant with the total harmony of mankind/ He goes on to 
remark, however, that in our zeal for the immutability of 
moral distinctions, we may weaken the case by contending for 
too much ; and proposes to consider the species of accordance 
that may be safely argued for. 



UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS. 647 

He begins by purging away the realistic notion of Virtue, 
considered as a self-existing entity. He defines it — a term 
expressing the relation of certain actions to certain emotions 
in the minds contemplating them ; its universality is merely 
co-extensive with these minds. He then concedes that all 
mankind do not, at every moment, feel precisely the same 
enotions in contemplating the same actions, and sets forth 
the limitations as follows ; — 

First, In moments of violent passion, the mind is in- 
capacitated for perceiving moral differences ; we must, in such 
cases appeal, as it were, from Philip drunk to Philip sober. 

Secondly, Still more important is the limitation arising 
from the complexity of many actions. Where good and evil 
resalts are so blended that we cannot easily assign the pre- 
ponderance, different men may form different conclusions. 
Partiality of views may arise from this cause, not merely in 
individuals, but in whole nations. The legal permission of 
theft in Sparta is a case in point. Theft, as theft, and without 
relation to the political object of inuring a warlike people, 
wou,d have been condemned in Sparta, as well as with us. 
[The retort of Locke is not out of place here ; an innate moral 
sentiment that permits a fundamental virtue to be set aside 
on the ground of mere state convenience, is of very little 
value.] He then goes on to ask whether men, in approving 
these exceptions to morality, approve them because they are 
immoral ? [The opponents of a moral sense do not contend 
for an immoral sense.] Suicide is not commended because it 
deprives society of useful members, and gives sorrow to rela- 
tions and friends ; the exposure of infants is not justified on 
the plea of adding to human suffering. 

Again, the differences of cookery among nations are much 
wider than the differences of moral sentiment ; and yet no one 
denies a fundamental susceptibility to sweet and bitter. It is 
not contended that we come into the world with a knowledge 
of actions, but that we have certain susceptibilities of emotion, 
in consequence of which, it is impossible for us, in after life, 
unless from counteracting circumstances, to be pleased with 
the contemplation of certain actions, and disgusted with cer- 
tain other actions. When the doctrine is thus stated, Paley's 
objection, that we should also receive from nature the notions 
of the actions themselves, falls to the ground. As well might 
we require an instinctive notion of all possible numbers, to 
bear out our instinctive sense of proportion. 

A third limitation must be added, the influence of the 



64S ETHICAL SYSTEMS — BROWN. 

principle of Association. One way that this operates is to 
transfer, to a whole class of actions, the feelings peculiar to 
certain marked individuals. Thus, in a civilized country, 
where property is largely possessed, and under complicated 
tenures, we become very sensitive to its violation, and acquire 
a proportionably intense sentiment of Justice. Again, asso- 
ciation operates in modifying our approval and disapproval of 
actions according to their attendant circumstances ; as when 
we extenuate misconduct in a beloved person. 

The author contends that, notwithstanding these limita- 
tions, we still leave unimpaired the approbation of unmixed 
good as good, and the disapprobation of unmixed evil as evil. 
His further remarks, however, are mainly eloquent declama- 
tion on the universality of moral distinctions. 

He proceeds to criticise the moral systems from Hoboes 
downwards. His remarks (Lecture 76) on the province of 
Reason in Morality, with reference to the systems of Clarke 
and Wollaston, contain the gist of the matter well expressed. 

He next considers the theory of Utility. That Utility 
bears a certain relation to Virtue is unquestionable. Benevo- 
lence means good to others, and virtue is of course made up, 
in great part, of this. But then, if Utility is held to be the 
measure of virtue, standing in exact proportion to it, the pro- 
position is very far from true ; it is only a small portion of 
virtuous actions wherein the measure holds. 

He does not doubt that virtuous actions do all tend, in a 
greater or less degree, to the advantage of the world. But he 
considers the question to be, whether what we have alone in 
view, in approving certain actions, be the amount of utility 
that they bring ; whether we have no other reason for com- 
mending a man than for praising a chest of drawers. 

Consider this question first from the point of view of the 
agent. Does the mother, in watching her sick infant, think 
of the good of mankind at that moment ? Is the pity called 
forth by misery a sentiment of the general good ? Look at it 
again from the point of view of the spectator. Is his admira- 
tion of a steam-engine, and of an heroic human action, the 
same sentiment ? Why do we not worship the earth, the 
source of all our utilities ? The ancient worshippers of nature 
always gave it a soul in the first instance. 

When the supporter of Utility arbitrarily confines his 
principles to the actions of living beings, he concedes the 
point in dispute ; he admits an approvableness peculiar to 
living and voluntary agents, a capacity of exciting moral emo- 



OBJECTIONS TO UTILITY AS THE STANDARD. 649 

tions not commensurate with any utility. Hume says, that 
the sentiments of utility connected with human beings are 
mixed with affection, esteem, and approbation, which do not 
attach to the utility of inanimate things. Brown replies, that 
these are the very sentiments to be accounted for, the moral 
part of the ease. 

But another contrast may be made ; namely, between the 
utility of virtue and the utility of talent or genius, which we 
view with very different and unequal sentiments ; the inven- 
tors of the printing press do not rouse the same emotions as 
the charities of the Man of Boss. 

Still, he contends, like the other supporters of innate 
moral distinctions, for a pre-established harmony between the 
two attributes. Utility and virtue are so intimately related, 
that there is perhaps no action generally felt by us as virtuous, 
but what is generally beneficial. But this is only discovered 
by reflecting men ; it never enters the mind of the unthinking 
multitude. Nay, more, it is only the Divine Being that can 
fully master this relationship, or so prescribe our duties that 
they shall ultimately coincide with the general happiness. 

He allows that the immediate object of the legislator is the 
general good ; but then his relationship is to the community 
as a whole, and not to any particular individual. 

He admits, farther, that the good of the world at large, 
if not the only moral object, is a moral object, in common 
with the good of parents, friends, and others related to us in 
private life. Farther, it may be requisite for the moralist to 
correct our moral sentiments by requiring greater attention to 
public, and less to private, good ; but this does not alter the 
nature of our moral feelings ; it merely presents new objects 
to our moral discrimination. It gives an exercise to our 
reason in disentangling the complicated results of our actions. 

He makes it also an objection to Utility, that it does not 
explain why we feel approbation of the useful, and disappro- 
bation of the hurtful ; forgetting that Benevolence is an 
admitted fact of our constitution, and may fairly be assigned 
by the moralist as the source of the moral sentiment. 

His next remarks are on the Selfish Systems, his reply to 
which is the assertion of Disinterested Affections. He dis- 
tinguishes two modes of assigning self-interest as the sole 
motive of virtuous conduct. First, it may be said that in 
every so-called virtuous action, we see some good to self, near 
or remote. Secondly, it may be maintained that we become 
at last disinterested by the associations of our own interest. 



650 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — BROWN. 

He calls in question this alleged process of association. 
Because a man's own cane is interesting to him, it does not 
follow that every other man's cane is interesting. [He here 
commits a mistake of fact ; other men's walking canes are 
interesting to the interested owner of a cane. It may not 
follow that this interest is enough to determine self-sacrifice.] 

It will be inferred that Brown contends warmly for the 
existence of Disinterested Affection,, not merely as a present, 
but as a primitive, fact of our constitution. He does not 
always keep this distinct from the Moral Sentiment ; he, in 
fact, mixes the two sentiments together in his language, a 
thing almost inevitable, but yet inconsistent with the advocacy 
of a distinct moral sentiment. 

He includes among* the Selfish Systems the Ethical Theory 
of Paley, which he reprobates in both its leading points — 
everlasting happiness as the motive, and the will of God as 
the rale. On the one point, this theory is liable to all the 
objections against a purely selfish system ; and, on the other 
point, he makes the usual replies to the founding of morality 
on the absolute will of the Deity, 

Brown next criticises the system of Adam Smith. Admit- 
ting that we have the sympathetic feeling that Smith proceeds 
upon, he questions its adequacy to constitute the moral senti- 
ment, on the ground that it is not a perpetual accompaniment of 
our actions. There must be a certain vividness of feeling or of 
the display of feeling, or at least a sufficient cause of vivid 
feeling, to call the sympathy into action. In the numerous 
petty actions of life, there is an absence of any marked 
sympathy. 

But the essential error of Smith's system is, that it assumes 
the very moral feelings that it is meant to explain. If there 
were no antecedent moral feelings, sympathy could not afford 
them ; it is only a mirror to reflect what is already in existence. 
The feelings that we sympathize with, are themselves moral 
feelings already ; if it were not so, the reflexion of them from 
a thousand breasts would not give them a moral nature. 

Brown thinks that Adam Smith was to some extent misled 
by an ambiguity in the word sympathy ; a word applied not 
merely to the participation of other men's feelings, but to the 
further and distinct fact of the approbation of those feelings. 

Although siding in the main with Shaftesbury and Hut- 
cheson, Brown objects to their designation Moral Sense, as 
expressing the innate power of moral approbation. If L Sense" 
be interpreted merely as susceptibility, he has nothing to say, 



FOUNDATION OF DISINTERESTED SENTIMENT. 651 

but if it mean a primary medium of perception, like the eye 
or the ear, he considers it a mistake. It is, in his view, an 
emotion, like hope, jealousy, or resentment, rising 1 up on the 
presentation of a certain class of objects. He farther objects 
to the phrase f moral ideas,' also used by Hutcheson. The 
moral emotions are more akin to love and hate, than to per- 
ception or judgment. 

Brown gives an exposition of Practical Ethics under the 
usual heads : Duties to Others, to God, to Ourselves. Duties 
to others he classifies thus : — I. — Negative, or abstinence from 
injuring others in Person, Property, Affections, Character or 
Reputation, Knowledge (veracity), Virtue, and Tranquillity; 
II. Positive, or Benevolence ; and III. — Duties growing out of 
•our peculiar ties — Affinity, Friendship, Good offices received. 
Contract, and Citizenship. 

To sum up — 

I. — As regards the Standard, Brown contends for an Innate 
Sentiment. 

II. — The Faculty being thus determined, along with the 
Standard, we have only to resume his views as to Disinterested 
action. For a full account of these, we have to go beyond 
the strictly Ethical lectures, to his analysis of the Emotions. 
Speaking of love, he says that it includes a desire of doing 
good to the person loved ; that it is necessarily pleasurable 
because there must be some quality in the object that gives 
pleasure ; but it is not the mere pleasure of loving that makes 
us love. The qualities are delightful to love, and yet impos- 
sible not to love. He is more explicit when he comes to the 
consideration of Pity, recognizing the existence of sympathy, 
not only without liking for the object, but with positive dis- 
like. In another place, he remarks that we desire the happi- 
ness of our fellows simply as human beings. He is opposed 
to the theory that would trace our disinterested affections to 
a selfish origin. He makes some attempt to refer to the laws of 
Association, the taking in of other men's emotions, but thinks 
that there is a reflex process besides. 

Although recognizing in a vague way the existence of 
genuine disinterested impulses, he dilates eloquently, and 
often, on the deliciousness of benevolence, and of all virtuous 
feelings and conduct. 

WILLIAM PALEY. [1743-1805]. 

The First Book of Paley's ' Moral and Political Philosophy' 
is entitled ' Preliminary Considerations -.' it is in fact an 



652 ETHICAL SYSTEMS —PALE Y. 

unmethodical account of various fundamental points of the 
subject. He begins by defining Moral Philosophy as c that 
science which teaches men their duty, and the reasons of it, 9 The 
ordinary rules are defective and may mislead, unless aided by 
a scientific investigation. These ordinary rules are the Law 
of Honour, the Law of the Land, and the Scriptures. 

He commences with the Law of Honour, which he views 
in its narrow sense, as applied to people of rank and fashion. 
This is of course a very limited code. 

The Law of the Land also must omit many duties, properly 
compulsory, as piety, benevolence, &c. It must also leave 
unpunished many vices, as luxury, prodigality, partiality. It 
must confine itself to offences strictly definable. 

The Scriptures lay down general rules, which have to be 
applied by the exercise of reason and judgment. Moreover, 
they pre-suppose the principles of natural justice, and supply 
new sanctions and greater certainty. Accordingly, they do 
not dispense with a scientific view of morals. 

[The correct arrangement of the common rules would have 
been (1) the Law of the Land, (2) the Laws of Society 
generally, and (8) the Scriptures. The Law of Honour is 
merely one application of the comprehensive agency of society 
in punishing men, by excommunication, for what it prohibits.] 

Then follows his famous chapter on the Moral Sense. 

It is by way of giving an effective statement of the point 
in dispute that he quotes the anecdote of Caius Toranius, as 
an extreme instance of filial ingratitude, and supposes it to 
be put to the wild boy caught in the woods of Hanover, with 
the view of ascertaining whether he would feel the sentiment 
of disapprobation as we do. Those that affirm an innate 
moral sense, must answer in the affirmative ; those that deny 
it, in the negative. 

He then recites the argumeuts on both sides. 

For the moral sense, it is contended, that we approve 
examples of generosity, gratitude, fidelity, &c, on the instant, 
without deliberation and without being conscious of any 
assignable reason ; and that this approbation is uniform and 
universal, the same sorts of conduct being approved or dis- 
approved in all ages and countries ; which circumstances 
point to the operation of an instinct, or a moral sense. 

The answers to these allegations are — 

First, The Uniformity spoken of is not admitted as a fact. 
According to the authentic accounts of historians and travellers, 
there is scarcely a single vice that, in some age or country of 



THE MORAL SENSE. 653 

the world, has not been countenanced by public opinion. The 
murder of aged parents, theft, suicide, promiscuous intercourse 
of the sexes, and unmentionable crimes have been tolerated 
and approved. Among ourselves, Duelling is viewed with 
the most opposite sentiments ; forgiveness of injuries is ac- 
counted by some people magnanimity, and by others meanness. 
In these, and in many other instances, moral approbation fol- 
lows the fashions and institutions of the country, which 
institutions have themselves grown out of local circumstances, 
the arbitrary authority of some chieftain, or the caprice of the 
multitude. 

Secondly, That, although, after allowing for these excep- 
tions, it is admitted that some sorts of actions are more ap- 
proved than others, the approbation being general, although 
not universal, yet this may be accounted for, without sup- 
posing a moral sense, thus : — 

Having experienced a particular line of conduct as bene- 
ficial to ourselves, for example, telling the truth, a sentiment 
of approbation grows up in consequence, and this sentiment 
thereupon arises whenever the action is mentioned, and 
without our thinking of the consequences in each instance. 
The process is illustrated by the love of money, which is 
strongest in the old, who least of all think of applying it to 
its uses. By such means, the approval of certain actions is 
commenced ; and being once commenced, the continuance of 
the feeling is accounted for by authority, by imitation, and by 
all the usages of good society. As soon as an entire society 
is possessed of an ethical view, the initiation of the new mem- 
bers is sure and irresistible. The efficacy of Imitation is 
shown in cases where there is no authority or express training 
employed, as in the likings and dislikings, or tastes and anti- 
pathies, in mere matters of indifference. 

So much in reply to the alleged uniformity. Next come 
the positive objections to a Moral Instinct. 

In the first place, moral rules are not absolutely and uni- 
versally true ; they bend to circumstances. Veracity, which 
is a natural duty, if there be any such, is dispensed with in 
case of an enemy, a thief, or a madman. The obligation of 
promises is released under certain circumstances. 

In the next place, the Instinct must bear with it the idea 
of the actions to be approved or disapproved ; but we are not 
born with any such ideas. 

On the whole, either there exist no moral instincts, or 
they are undistinguishable from prejudices and habits, and 



Q54 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— PALEY. 

are not to be trusted in moral reasonings. Aristotle held it 
as self-evident that barbarians are meant to be slaves ; so do 
our modern slave-traders. This instance is one of many to 
show that the convenience of the parties has much to do with 
the rise of a moral sentiment. And every system built upon 
instincts is more likely to find excuses for existing opinions 
and practices than to reform either. 

Again : supposing these Instincts to exist, what is their 
authority or power to punish ? Is it the infliction of remorse ? 
That may be borne with for the pleasures and profits of wick- 
edness. If they are to be held as indications of the will of 
God, and therefore as presages of his intentions, that result 
may be arrived at by a surer road. 

The next preliminary topic is Human Happiness. 
Happiness is defined as the excess of pleasure over pain. 
Pleasures are to be held as differing only in continuance, and 
in intensity, A computation made in respect of these two pro- 
perties, confirmed by the degrees of cheerfulness, tranquillity, 
and contentment observable among men, is to decide all 
questions as to human happiness. 

I. — What Human Happiness does not consist in. 
Not in the pleasures of Sense, in whatever profusion or 
variety enjoyed ; in which are included sensual pleasures, 
active sports, and Fine Art. 

1st, Because they last for a short time. [Surely they are 
good for the time they do last.] 2ndly, By repetition, they 
lose their relish. [Intermission and variety, however, are 
to be supposed.] 3rdly, The eagerness for high and intense 
delights takes away the relish from all others. 

Paley professes to have observed in the votaries of pleasure 
a restless craving for variety, languor under enjoyment, and 
misery in the want of it. After all, however, these pleasures 
have their value, and may be too much despised as well as 
too much followed. 

Next, happiness does not consist in the exemption from 
pain (?), from labour, care, business, and outward evils ; such 
exemption leaving one a prey to morbid depression, anxiety, 
and hypochondria. Even a pain in moderation may be a 
refreshment, from giving a stimulus to pursuit. 

Nor does it consist in greatness, rank, or station, The 
reason here is derived, as usual, from the doctrine of Relativity 
or Comparison, pushed beyond all just limits. The illustration 
of the dependence of the pleasure of superiority on comparison 
is in Paley's happiest style. 



DEFINITION OF VIRTUE EQUIVOCAL. 655 

II. — What happiness does consist in. Allowing for the 
great difficulties of this vital determination, he proposes to be 
governed by a reference to the conditions of life where men 
appear most cheerful and contented. 

It consists, 1st, In the exercise of the social affections. 
2ndly, The exercise of our faculties, either of body or of mind, 
in the pursuit of some engaging end. [This includes the two 
items of occupation and plot-interest.] 3rdly, Upon the pru- 
dent constitution of the habits ; the prudent constitution being 
chiefly in moderation and simplicity of life, or in demanding 
few stimulants ; and 4thly, In Health, whose importance he 
values highly, but not too highly. 

The consideration of these negative and positive conditions, 
he thinks, justifies the two conclusions : (1) That happiness 
is pretty equally distributed amongst the different orders of 
society; and (2) That in respect of this world's happiness, 
vice has no advantage over virtue. 

The last subject of the First Book is Virtue. The defini- 
tion of virtue is L the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the 
will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness.' 

If this were strictly interpreted according to its form, it 
would mean that three things go to constitute virtue, any one 
of which being absent, we should not have virtue. Doing 
good to mankind alone is not virtue, unless coupled with a 
divine requirement ; and this addition would not suffice, with- 
out the farther circumstance of everlasting happiness as the 
reward. But such is not his meaning, nor is it easy to fix 
the meaning. He unites the two conditions — Human Happi- 
ness and the Will of the Deity — and holds them to coincide 
and to explain one another. Either of the two would be a 
sufficient definition of virtue ; and he would add, as an ex- 
planatory proposition and a guide to practice, that the one 
may be taken as a clue to the other. Tn a double criterion 
like this, everything depends upon the manner of working it. 
By running from one of the tests to another at discretion, we 
may evade whatever is disagreeable to us in both. 

Book II., entitled Moral Obligation, is the full develop- 
ment of his views. Reciting various theories of moral right 
and wrong, he remarks, first, that they all ultimately coincide ; 
in other words, all the theorists agree upon the same rules of 
duty — a remark to be received with allowances; and next, 
that they all leave the matter short ; none provide an ade- 
quate motive or inducement. [He omits to mention the theory 
of the Divine Will, which is partly his own theory]. 



656 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — PALEY. 

In proceeding to supply this want, he asks first ' what is 
meant by being obliged to do a thing;' and answers, c a violent 
motive resulting from the command of another.'' The motive 
must be violent, or have some degree of force to overcome 
reluctance or opposing tendencies. It must also result from 
the command of another ; not the mere offer of a gratuity by 
way of inducement. Such is the nature of Law ; we should 
not obey the magistrate, unless rewards or punishments de- 
pended on our obedience ; so neither should we, without the 
same reason, do what is right, or obey God.. 

He then resumes the general question, under a concrete 
case, ' Why am I obliged to keep my word ?' The answer 
accords with the above explanation ; — Because I am urged to 
do so by a violent motive (namely, the rewards and punish- 
ments of a future life), resulting from the command of God. 
Private happiness is the motive, the will of God the rule. 
[Although not brought out in the present connexion, it is 
implied that the will of God intends the happiness of man- 
kind, and is to be interpreted accordingly.] 

Previously, when reasoning on the means of human happi- 
ness,, he declared it to be an established conclusion, that virtue 
leads to happiness, even in this life ; now he bases his own 
theory on the uncertainty of that conclusion. His words are, 
' They who would establish a system of morality, independent of 
a future state, must look out for some other idea of moral obli- 
gation, unless they can show that virtue conducts the possessor 
to certain happiness in this life, or to a much greater share of 
it than he could attain by a different behaviour.' He does 
not make the obvious remark that human authority, as far as 
it goes, is also a source of obligation ; it works by the very 
same class of means as the divine authority. 

He next proceeds to enquire into the means of determining 
the Will of God. There are two sources — the express declara- 
tions of Scripture, when they are to be had ; and the design 
impressed on the world, in other words, the light of nature. 
This last source requires him, on his system, to establish the 
Divine Benevolence ; and he arrives at the conclusion that 
God wills and wishes the happiness of his creatures, and 
accordingly, that the method of coming at his will concerning 
any action is to enquire into the tendency of that action to 
promote or to diminish the general happiness. 

He then discusses Utelity, with a view of answering the 
objection that actions may be useful, and yet such as no man 
will allow to be right. This leads him to distinguish between 



GENERAL RULES. 657 

the particular and the general consequences of actions, and to 
enforce the necessity of General Rules. An assassin, by 
knocking a rich villain on the head, may do immediate and 
particular good ; but the liberty granted to individuals to kill 
whoever they should deem injurious to society, would render 
human life unsafe, and induce universal terror. l Whatever 
is expedient is right/ but then it must be expedient on 
the whole, in the long run, in all its effects collateral and 
remote, as well as immediate and direct. When the 
honestum is opposed to the utile, the honestum means the 
general and remote consequences, the utile the particular and 
the near. 

The concluding sections of Book II. are occupied with the 
consideration of Right and Rights. A Right is of course 
correlative with an Obligation. Rights are Natural or Adven- 
titious ; Alienable or Inalienable ; Perfect or Imperfect. The 
only one of these distinctions having any Ethical application 
is Perfect and Imperfect. The Perfect Rights are, the Imper- 
fect are not, enforced by Law. 

Under the ' general Rights of mankind/ he has a discus- 
sion as to our right to the flesh of animals, and contends that 
it would be difficult to defend this right by any arguments 
drawn from the light of nature, and that it reposes on the 
text of Genesis ix. 1, 2, 3. 

As regards the chief bulk of Paley's work, it is necessary 
only to indicate his scheme of the Duties, and his manner of 
treating them. 

Book III. considers Relative Duties. There are three 
classes of these. First, Relative Duties that are Determinate, 
meaning all those that are strictly denned and enforced ; those 
growing out of Promises, Contracts, Oaths, and Subscriptions 
to Articles of Religion. Secondly, Relative Duties that are 
Indeterminate, as Charity, in its various aspects of treatment 
of dependents, assistance to the needy, &c. ; the checks on 
Anger and Revenge; Gratitude, &c. Thirdly, the Relative 
Duties growing out of the Sexes. 

Book IV. is Duties to Ourselves, and treats of Self- 
defence, Drunkenness, and Suicide. 

Book V. comprises Duties towards God. 

Book VI. is occupied with Politics and Political Economy. 
It discusses the Origin of Civil Government, the Duty of 
Submission to Government, Liberty, the Forms of Govern- 
ment, the British Constitution, the Administration of Justice, 
&c. 

42 



658 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — PALEY. 

The Ethical Theory of Paley may be briefly resumed 
thus: — 

I.— The Ethical Standard with him is the conjoined 
reference to the Will of the Deity, and to Utility, or Human 
Happiness. He is unable to construct a scheme applicable to 
mankind generally, until they are first converted to a belief 
in Revelation. 

II. — The Psychology implied in his system involves his 
most characteristic features. 

1. He is unmistakeable in repudiating Innate Moral Dis- 
tinctions, and on this point, and on this only, is he thoroughly 
at one with the Utilitarians of the present day. 

2. On the Theory of Will he has no remarks. He has 
an utter distaste for anything metaphysical. 

3. He does not discuss Disinterested Sentiment ; by im- 
plication, he denies it. ' Without the expectation of a future 
existence,' he says, f all reasoning upon moral questions is 
vain.' He cannot, of course, leave out all reference to gene- 
rosity. Under ' Pecuniary Bounty ' he makes this remark — 
4 They who rank pity amongst the original impulses of our 
nature, rightly contend, that when this principle prompts us 
to the relief of human misery, it indicates the Divine intention 
and our duty. Whether it be an instinct or a habit (?), it is, 
in fact, a property of our nature, which God appointed, &c.' 
This is his first argument for charity ; the second is derived 
from the original title of mankind, granted by the Deity, to 
hold the earth in common ; and the third is the strong 
injunctions of Scripture on this head. He cannot, it seems, 
trust human nature with a single charitable act apart from 
the intervention of the Deity. 

III.— He has an explicit scheme of Happiness. 

IV. — The Substance of his Moral Code is distinguished 
from the current opinions chiefly by his well-known views on 
Subscription to Articles. He cannot conceive how, looking 
to the incurable diversity of human opinion on all matters 
short of demonstration, the legislature could expect the per- 
petual consent of a body of ten thousand men, not to one 
controverted proposition, but to many hundreds. 

His inducements to the performance of duty are, as we should 
expect, a mixed reference to Public Utility and to Scripture. 

In the Indeterminate Duties, where men are urged by 
moral considerations, to the exclusion of legal compulsion, he 
sometimes appeals directly to our generous sympathies, as well 
as to self-interest, but usually ends with the Scripture authority. 



PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY. 659 

V. — The relation of Ethics to Politics is not a prominent 
feature in Paley. He makes moral rules repose finally, not 
upon human, but upon Divine Law. Hence (VI.) the con- 
nexion of his system with Theology is fundamental. 

JEKEMY BENTHAM. [1748-1832.] 

The Ethical System of Jeremy Bentham is given in his 
work, entitled \ An Introduction to the Principles of Morals 
and Legislation/ first published in 1789. In a posthumous 
work, entitled Deontology, his principles were farther illus- 
trated, chiefly with reference to the minor morals and amiable 
virtues. 

It is the first-named work that we shall here chiefly 
notice. In it, the author has principally in view Legislation ; 
but the same common basis, Utility, serves, in his judgment, 
for Ethics, or Morals. 

The first chapter, entitled c The Pkinciple of Utility,' 
begins thus : — ' Nature has placed mankind under the gover- 
nance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for 
them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to 
determine what we shall do. On the one hand, the standard 
of right and wrong ; on the other, the chain of causes and 
effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all 
we do, in all we say, in all we think ; every effort we can 
make to throw off our subjection will serve but to demonstrate 
and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their 
empire, but in reality he will remain subject to it all the 
while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and 
assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of 
which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hand of reason 
and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in 
sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in dark- 
ness instead of light.' 

He defines Utility in various phrases, all coming to the 
same thing : — the tendency of actions to promote the happi- 
ness, and to prevent the misery, of the party under considera- 
tion, which party is usually the community where one's lot is 
cast. Of this principle no proof can be offered ; it is the final 
axiom, on which alone we can found all arguments of a moral 
kind. He that attempts to combat it, usually assumes it, un- 
awares. An opponent is challenged to say — (1) if he discards 
it wholly ; (2) if he will act without any principle, or if there 
is any other that he would judge by ; (3) if that other be 
really and distinctly separate from utility ; (4) if he is inclined 



660 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— BENTHAM. 

to set up his own approbation or disapprobation as the rule ; 
and if so, whether he will force that upon others, or allow each 
person to do the same ; (5) in the first case, if his principle is 
not despotieal; (6) in the second case, whether it is not 
anarchical; (7) supposing him to add the plea of reflection, 
let him say if the basis of his reflections excludes utility ; (8) 
if he means to compound the matter, and take utility for part ; 
and if so, for what part ; (9) why he goes so far, with Utility, 
and no farther ; (10) on what other principle a meaning can 
be attached to the words motive and right. 

In Chapter II., Bentham discusses the Principles adverse 
to Utility. He conceives two opposing grounds. The first 
mode of opposition is direct and constant, as exemplified in 
Asceticism. A second mode may be only occasional, as in 
what he terms the principle of Sympathy and Antipathy 
(Liking and Disliking). 

The principle of Asceticism means the approval of an 
action according to its tendency to diminish happiness, or 
obversely. Any one reprobating in any shape, pleasure as 
such, is a partisan of this principle. Asceticism has been 
adopted, on the one hand, by certain moralists, from the spur 
of philosophic pride ; and on the other hand, by certain re- 
ligionists, under the impulse of fear. It has been much less 
admitted into Legislation than into Morals. It may have 
originated, in the first instance, with hasty speculators, look- 
ing at the pains attending certain pleasures in the long run, 
and pushing the abstinence from such pleasures (justified to a 
certain length on prudential grounds) so far as to fall in love 
with pain. 

The other principle, Sympathy and Antipathy, means the 
unreasoning approbation or disapprobation of the individual 
mind, where fancy, caprice, accidental liking or disliking, may 
mix with a regard to human happiness. This is properly the 
negation of a principle. What we expect to find in a principle 
is some external consideration, warranting and guiding our 
sentiments of approbation and disapprobation ; a basis that all 
are agreed upon. 

It is under this head that Bentham rapidly surveys and 
dismisses all the current theories of Right and Wrong. 
They consist all of them, he says, in so many contrivances for 
avoiding an appeal to any external standard, and for requiring 
us to accept the author's sentiment or opinion as a reason for 
itself. The dictates of this principle, however, will often 
unintentionally coincide with utility ; for what more natural 



THE SANCTIONS. 661 

ground of hatred to a practice can there be than its mis- 
chievous tendency ? The things that men suffer by, they 
will be disposed to hate. Still, it is not constant in its 
operation ; for people may ascribe the suffering to the wrong 
cause. The principle is most liable to err on the side of 
severity ; differences of taste and of opinion are sufficient 
grounds for quarrel and resentment. It will err on the side 
of lenity, when a mischief is remote and imperceptible. 

The author reserves a distinct handling for the Theological 
principle ; alleging that it falls under one or other of the three 
foregoing. The Will of God must mean bis will as revealed 
in the sacred writings, which, as the labours of divines testify, 
themselves stand in need of interpretation. What is meant, 
in fact, is the presumptive will of God ; that is, what is pre- 
sumed to be his will on account of its conformity with another 
principle. We are pretty sure that what is right is conformable 
to his will, but then this requires us first to know what is right. 
The usual mode of knowing God's pleasure (he remarks) is to 
observe what is our own pleasure, and pronounce that to be his. 

Chapter III. — On Four Sanctions or Sources of Pain and 
Pleasure whereby men are stimulated to act right ; they 
are termed, physical, political, moral, and religious. These are 
the Sanctions of Right. 

The physical sanction includes the pleasures and pains 
arising in the ordinary course of nature, unmodified by the 
will of any human being, or of any supernatural being. 

The political sanction is what emanates from the sovereign 
or supreme ruling power of the state. The punishments of 
the Law come under this head. 

The moral or popular sanction results from the action of 
the community, or of the individuals that each person comes in 
contact with, acting without any settled or concerted rule. 
It corresponds to public opinion, and extends in its operation 
beyond the sphere of the law. 

The religious sanction proceeds from the immediate hand 
of a superior invisible being, either in the present, or in a 
future life. 

The name Punishment is applicable only to the three last. 
The suffering that befalls a man in the course of nature is 
termed a calamity ; if it happen through imprudence on his 
part, it may be styled a punishment issuing from the physical 
sanction. 

Chapter TV. is the Value of a lot of Pleasure or Pain, 
how to be Measured. A pleasure or a pain is determined to 



662 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — BENTHAM. 

be greater or less according to (1) its intensity, (2) its dura- 
tion, (3) its certainty or uncertainty, (4) its propinquity or 
remoteness ; all which are obvious distinctions. To these are 
to be added (5) its fecundity, or the chance it has of being 
followed by other sensations of its own kind ; that is pleasures 
if it be pleasure, pains if it be pain. Finally (6) its purity, or 
the chance of its being unmixed with the opposite kind ; a 
pure pleasure has no mixture of pain. All the six properties 
apply to the case of an individual person ; where a plurality are 
concerned, a new item is present, (7) the extent, or the number 
of persons affected. These properties exhaust the meaning of 
the terms expressing good and evil ; on the one side, happi- 
ness, convenience, advantage, benefit, emolument, profit, 
&c. ; and, on the other, unhappiness, inconvenience, disad-; 
vantage, loss, mischief, and the like. 

Next follows, in Chapter V., a classified enumeration of 
Pleasures and Pains. In a system undertaking to base all 
Moral and Political action on the production of happiness, 
such a classification is obviously required. The author pro- 
fesses to have grounded it on an analysis of human nature, 
which analysis itself, however, as being too metaphysical, he 
withholds. 

The simple pleasures are: — 1. The pleasures of sense. 
2. The pleasures of wealth. 3. The pleasures of skill. 4. The 
pleasures of amity. 5. The pleasures of a good name. 6. The 
pleasures of power. 7. The pleasures of piety. 8. The plea- 
sures of benevolence. 9. The pleasures of malevolence. 
10. The pleasures of memory. 11. The pleasures of imagi- 
nation. 12. The pleasures of expectation. 13. The pleasures 
dependent on association. 14. The pleasures of relief. 

The simple pains are : — 1 . The pains of privation. 2. The 
pains of the senses. 3. The pains of awkwardness. 4. The 
pains of enmity. 5. The pains of an ill name. 6. The pains 
of piety. 7. The pains of benevolence. 8. The pains of male- 
volence. 9. The pains of the memory. 10. The pains of the 
imagination. 11. The pains of expectation. 12. The pains 
dependent on association. 

We need not quote his detailed subdivision and illustration 
of these. At the close, he marks the important difference 
between self -regarding and extra-regarding ; the last being 
those of benevolence and of malevolence. 

In a long chapter (VI.), he dwells on Circumstances influ- 
encing Sensibility. They are such as the following: — 1. 
Health. 2. Strength. 3. Hardiness. 4. Bodily imperfection. 



PLEASURES AND PAINS. — MOTIVES. 663 

5. Quantity and Quality of knowledge. 6. Strength of intel- 
lectual powers. 7. Firmness of mind. 8. Steadiness of 
mind. 9. Bent of inclination. 10. Moral sensibility. 11. 
Moral biases. 12. Religious Sensibility. 13. Religious 
biases. 14. Sympathetic Sensibility. 15. Sympathetic biases. 
16. Antipathetic sensibility. 17. Antipathetic biases. 18. 
Insanity. 19. Habitual occupations. 20. Pecuniary circum- 
stances. 21. Connexions in the way of sympathy. 22. 
Connexions in the way of antipathy. 23. Radical frame of 
body. 24. Radical frame of mind. 25. Sex. 26. Age. 27. 
Rank. 28. Education. 29. Climate. 30. Lineage. 31. 
Government. 32. Religious profession. 

Chapter VII. proceeds to consider Human Actions in 
general. Right and wrong, good and evil, merit and demerit 
belong to actions. These have to be divided and classified 
with a view to the ends of the moralist and the legislator. 
Throughout this, and two other long chapters, he discusses, as 
necessary in apportioning punishment, the act itself, the circum- 
stances, the intention, and the consciousness — or the knowledge 
of the tendencies of the act. He introduces many subdivisions 
under each head, and makes a number of remarks of import- 
ance as regards penal legislation. 

In Chapter X., he regards pleasures and pains in the 
aspect of Motives. Since every pleasure and every pain, as 
a part of their nature, induce actions, they are often de- 
signated with reference to that circumstance. Hunger, thirst, 
lust, avarice, curiosity, ambition, &c, are names of this class. 
There is not a complete set of such designations ; hence the 
use of the circumlocutions, appetite for, love of, desire of — sweet 
odours, sounds, sights, ease, reputation, &c. 

Of great importance is the Order of pre-eminence among 
motives. Of all the varieties of motives, Good- will, or Bene- 
volence, taken in a general view, is that whose dictates are 
surest to coincide with Utility. In this, however, it is taken 
for granted that the benevolence is not so confined in its 
sphere, as to be contradicted by a more extensive, or enlarged, 
benevolence. 

After good-will, the motive that has the best chance of 
coinciding with Utility is Love of Reputation. The coincidence 
would be perfect, if men's likings and dislikings were governed 
exclusively by the principle of Utility, and not, as they often 
are, by the hostile principles of Asceticism, and of Sympathy 
and Antipathy. Love of reputation is inferior as a motive to 
Good-will, in not governing the secret actions. These last 



664 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — BENTHAM. 

are affected, only as they have a chance of becoming public, 
or as men contract a habit of looking to public approbation in 
all they do. 

The desire of Amity, or of close personal affections, is 
placed next in order, as a motive. According as we extend 
the number of persons whose amity we desire, this prompting 
approximates to the love of reputation. 

After these three motives, Bentham places the Dictates of 
Religion, which, however, are so various in their suggestions, 
that he can hardly speak of them in common. Were the 
Being, who is the object of religion, universally supposed to 
be as benevolent as he is supposed to be wise and powerful, and 
were the notions of his benevolence as correct as the notions 
of his wisdom and power, the dictates of religion would 
correspond, in all cases, with Utility. But while men call 
him benevolent in words, they seldom mean that he is so in 
reality. They do not mean that he is benevolent as man is 
conceived to be benevolent ; they do not mean that he is 
benevolent in the only sense that benevolence has a meaning. 
The dictates of religion are in all countries intermixed, more 
or less, with dictates unconformable to utility, deduced from 
texts, well or ill interpreted, of the writings held for sacred 
by each sect. These dictates, however, gradually approach 
nearer to utility, because the dictates of the moral sanction 
do so. 

Such are the four Social or Tutelary Motives, the anta- 
gonists of the Dissocial and Self-regarding motives, which 
include the remainder of the catalogue. 

Chapter XI. is on Dispositions. A man is said to be of a 
mischievous disposition, when he is presumed to be apt to 
engage rather in actions of an apparently pernicious tendency, 
than in such as are apparently beneficial. The author lays 
down certain Rules for indicating Disposition. Thus, 6 The 
strength of the temptation being given, the mischievousness 
of the disposition manifested by the enterprise, is as the 
apparent mischievousness of the act/ and others to a like 
effect. 

Chapter XII. — Of the consequences of a mischievous 
ACT, is meant as the concluding link of the whole previous 
chain of causes and effects. He defines the shapes that 
bad consequences may assume. The mischief may be 
primary, as when sustained by a definite number of indi- 
viduals ; or secondary ', by extending over a multitude of un- 
assignable individuals. The evil in this last case may be 



PRIVATE ETHICS — DUTIES TO OURSELVES. 665 

either actual pain, or danger, which is the chance of pain. 
Thus, a successful robbery affects, primarily, a number of 
assignable persons, and secondarily, all persons in a like 
situation of risk. 

He then proceeds to the theory of Punishment (XIII., 
XIV., XV.), to the classification of Offences (XVI.), and to 
the Limits of the Penal Branch of Jurisprudence (XVII.). 
The two first subjects — Punishments and Offences — are inter- 
esting chiefly in regard to Legislation. They have also a 
bearing on Morals ; inasmuch as society, in its private adminis- 
tration of punishments, ought, no less than the Legislator, to 
be guided by sound scientific principles. 

As respects Punishment, he marks off (1) cases where it is 
groundless; (2) where it is inefficacious, as in Infancy, Insanity, 
Intoxication, &c; (3) cases where it is unprofitable; and (4) 
cases where it is needless. It is under this last herd that he 
excludes from punishment the dissemination of what may be 
deemed pernicious principles. Punishment is needless here, 
because the end can be served by reply and exposure. 

The first part of Chapter XVII. is entitled the c Limits 
between Private Ethics and the Art of Legislation;' and a 
short account of it will complete the view of the author's 
Ethical Theory. 

Ethics at large, is defined the art of directing men's actions 
to the production of the greatest possible quantity of happi- 
ness, on the part of those whose interest is in view, Now, 
these actions may be a man's own actions, in which case they 
are styled the art of self- government, or private ethics. Or they 
may be the actions of other agents, namely, (1) Other human 
beings, and (2) Other Animals, whose interests Bentham con- 
siders to have been disgracefully overlooked by jurists as well 
as by mankind generally. 

In so far as a man's happiness depends on his own con- 
duct, he may be said to owe a duty to himself ; the quality 
manifested in discharge of this branch of duty (if duty it is to 
be called) is prudence. In so far as he affects by his conduct 
the interests of those about him, he is under a duty to others. 
The happiness of others may be consulted in two ways. First, 
negatively, by forbearing to diminish it ; this is called 
probity. Secondly, in a positive way, by studying to increase 
it ; which is expressed by beneficence. 

But now the question occurs, how is it that under Private 
Ethics (or apart from legislation and religion) a man can be 
under a motive to consult other people's happiness ? By what 



666 ETHICAL SYSTEMS- — BENTHAM. 

obligations can he be bound to probity and beneficence? A 
man can have no adequate motives for consulting any interests 
but bis own. Still there are motives for making us consult 
the happiness of others, namely, the purely social motive of 
Sympathy or Benevolence, and the semi- social motives of Love 
of Amity and Love of Reputation., [He does not say here 
whether Sympathy is a motive grounded on the pleasure it 
brings, or a motive irrespective of the pleasure ; although from 
other places we may infer that he inclines to the first view.] 

Private Ethics and Legislation can have but the same end, 
happiness. Their means, the actions prompted, must be 
nearly the same. Still they are different.. There is no case 
where a man ought not to be guided by his own, or his fellow- 
creatures', happiness; but there are many cases where the 
legislature should not compel a man to perform such actions. 
The reason is that the Legislature works solely by Punish- 
ment (reward is seldom applied, and is not properly an act of 
legislation). Now, there are cases where the punishment of 
the political sanction ought not to be used ; and if, in any of 
these cases, there is a propriety of using the punishments of 
private ethics (the moral or social sanction), this circumstance 
would indicate the line of division. 

First, then, as to the cases where punishment would be 
groundless. In such cases, neither legislation nor private 
ethics should interfere. 

Secondly. As to cases where it would be inefficacious, where 
punishment has no deterring motive power, — as in Infancy, 
Insanity, overwhelming danger, &c, — the public and the pri- 
vate sanctions are also alike excluded. 

Thirdly. It is in the cases where Legislative punishment 
would be unprofitable, that we have the great field of Private 
Ethics. Punishment is unprofitable in two ways.. First, 
when the danger of detection is so small, that nothing but 
enormous severity, on detection,, would be of avail, as in the 
illicit commerce of the sexes, which has generally gone un- 
punished by law. Secondly, when there is; danger of in- 
volving the innocent with the guilty, from inability to define 
the crime in precise language. Hence it is that rude be- 
haviour, treachery, and ingratitude are not punished by law ; 
and that in countries where the voice of the people controls 
the hand of the legislature, there is a great dread of making 
defamation, especially of the government, an offence at law. 

Private Ethics is not liable to the same difficulties as 
Legislation in dealing with such offences. 



PROVINCE OF LEGISLATION. 667 

Of the three departments of Moral Duty — Prudence, 
Probity, and Beneficence — the one that least requires and 
admits of being enforced by legislative punishment is the 
first — Prudence. It can only be through some defect of the 
understanding, if people are wanting in duty to themselves. 
Itfow, although a man may know little of himself, is it 
certain the legislator knows more ? Would it be possible to 
extirpate drunkenness or fornication by legal punishment? 
All that can be done in this field is to subject the offences, in 
cases of notoriety, to a slight censure, so as to cover them 
with a slight shade of artificial disrepute, and thus give 
strength and influence to the moral sanction. 

Legislators have, in general, carried their interference too 
far in this class of duties ; and the mischief has been most 
conspicuous in religion. Men, it is supposed, are liable to 
errors of judgment; and for these it is the determination of a 
Being of infinite benevolence to punish them with an infinity 
of torments. The legislator, having by his side men perfectly 
enlightened, unfettered, and unbiassed, presumes that he has 
attained by their means the exact truth ; and so, when he sees 
his people ready to plunge headlong into an abyss of fire, shall 
he not stretch forth his hand to save them ? 

The second class of duties — the rules of Probity, stand 
most in need of the assistance of the legislator. There are 
few cases where it would be expedient to punish a man for 
hurting himself, and few where it would not be expedient to 
punish a man for hurting his neighbour. As regards offences 
against property, private ethics presupposes legislation, which 
alone can determine what things are to be regarded as each 
man's property. If private ethics takes a different view from 
the legislature, it must of course act on its own views. 

The third class of duties — Beneficence — must be aban- 
doned to the jurisdiction of private ethics. In many cases 
the beneficial quality of an act depends upon the disposition 
of the agent, or the possession by him of the extra- regarding 
motives — sympathy, amity, and reputation ; whereas political 
action can work only through the self-regarding motives. In 
a word these duties must he free or voluntary,. Still, the limits 
of law on this head might be somewhat extended ; in particular, 
where a man's person is in danger, it might be made the duty 
of every one to save him from mischief, no less than to ab- 
stain from bringing it on him. 

To resume the Ethics of Bentham. L — The Standard or 
End of Morality is the production of Happiness, or Utility, 



668 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— BENTHAM. 

Bentham is thus at one in his first principle with Hume and 
with Paley ; his peculiarity is to make it fruitful in numerous 
applications both to legislation and to morals. He carries 
out the principle with an unflinching rigour, and a logical 
force peculiarly his ^own. 

11. — His .Psychological Analysis is also studied and 
thorough-going. 

He is the first person to provide a classification of plea- 
sures and pains, as an indispensable preliminary alike to 
morals and to legislation. The ethical applications of these 
are of less importance than the legislative ; they have a direct 
and practical bearing upon the theory of Punishment. 

He lays down, as the constituents of the Moral Faculty, 
Good-will or Benevolence, the love of Amity, the love of 
Reputation, and the dictates of Religion — with a view to the 
Happiness of others ; and Prudence — with a view to our own 
happiness. He gives no special account of the acquired senti- 
ment of Obligation or Authority — the characteristic of Con- 
science, as distinguished from other impulses having a 
tendency to the good of others or of self. And yet it is the 
peculiarity of his system to identify morality with law ; so 
that there is only one step to connecting conscience with our 
education under the different sanctions — legal and ethical. 

He would of course give a large place to the Intellect or 
Reason in making up the Moral Faculty, seeing that the con- 
sequences of actions have to be estimated or judged ; but he 
would regard this as merely co-operating with our sensibilities 
to pleasure and pain. 

The Disinterested Sentiment is not regarded by Bentham 
as arising from any disposition to pure self-sacrifice. He 
recognizes Pleasures of Benevolence and Pains of Benevolence ; 
thus constituting a purely interested motive for doing good to 
others. He describes certain pleasures of Imagination or 
Sympathy arising through Association — the idea of plenty, 
the idea of the happiness of animals, the idea of health, the 
idea of gratitude. Under the head of Circumstances influencing 
Sensibility, he adverts to Sympathetic Sensibility, as being the 
propensity to derive pleasure from the happiness, and pain from 
ike unhappiness, of other sensitive heings. It cannot but be ad- 
mitted, he says, that the only interest that a man at all 
times, and on all occasions, is sure to find adequate motives for 
consulting, is his own. He has no metaphysics of the Will. 
He uses the terms free and voluntary only with reference to spon- 
taneous beneficence, as opposed to the compulsion of the law. 



SUMMAKY. 669 

III. — As regards Happiness, or the Summum Bonum, lie 
presents his scientific classification of Pleasures and Pains, 
without, however, indicating any plan of life, for attaining the 
one and avoiding the other in the best manner. He makes no 
distinction among pleasures and pains excepting what strictly 
concerns their value as such — intensity, duration, certainty, 
and nearness. He makes happiness to mean only the presence 
of pleasure and the absence of pain. The renunciation of 
pleasure for any other motive than to procure a greater plea- 
sure, or avoid a greater pain, he, disapprovingly, terms 
asceticism. 

IV. — It being the essence of his system to consider Ethics 
as a Code of Laws directed by Utility, and he being himself 
a law reformer on the greatest scale, we might expect from 
him suggestions for the improvement of Ethics, as well as for 
Legislation and Jurisprudence. His inclusion of the interests 
of the lower animals has been mentioned. He also contends for 
the partly legislative and partly ethical innovation of Freedom 
of Divorce. 

The inducements to morality are the motives assigned as 
working in its favour. 

V. — The connexions of Ethics with Politics, the points ffr 
agreement and the points of difference of the two departments, 
are signified with unprecedented care and precision (Chap. 
XVIL). 

VI. — As regards the connexions with Theology, he gives 
no uncertain sound. It is on this point that he stands in 
marked contrast to Paley, who also professes Utility as his 
ethical foundation. 

He recognizes religion as furnishing one of the Sanctions 
of morality, although often perverted into the enemy of 
utility. He considers that the state may regard as offences 
any acts that tend to diminish or misapply the influence of 
religion as a motive to civil obedience. 

While Paley makes a conjoined reference to Scripture and 
to Utility in ascertaining moral rules, Bentham insists on 
Utility alone as the final appeal. He does not doubt that if 
we had a clear unambiguous statement of the divine will, we 
should have a revelation of what is for human happiness ; but 
he distrusts all interpretations of scripture, unless they coin- 
cide with a perfectly independent scientific investigation of 
the consequences of actions. 



670 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — MACKINTOSH. 



SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. [1765-1832.] 

In the ' Dissertation on the progress of Ethical Philosophy 
chiefly during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries/ 
Mackintosh advocates a distinct Ethical theory. His views 
and arguments occur partly in the course of his criticism of 
the other moralists, and partly in his concluding General 
Remarks (Section VII.). 

In Section L, entitled Preliminary Observations, he re- 
marks on the universality of the distinction between Right 
and Wrong. On no subject do men, in all ages, coincide on 
so many points as on the general rules of conduct, and the 
estimable qualities of character. Even the grossest deviations 
may be explained by ignorance of facts, by errors with respect to 
the consequences of actions, or by inconsistency with admitted 
principles. In tribes where new-born infants are exposed, 
the abandonment of parents is condemned ; the betrayal and 
murder of strangers is condemned by the very rules of faith 
and humanity, acknowledged in the case of countrymen. 

He complains that, in the enquiry as to the foundation of 
morals, the two distinct questions— as to the Standard and the 
Faculty — have seldom been fully discriminated. Thus, Paley 
opposes Utility to a Moral Sense, not perceiving that the 
two terms relate to different subjects ; and Bentham repeats 
the mistake. It is possible to represent Utility as the criterion 
of Right, and a Moral Sense as the faculty . In another place, 
he remarks that the schoolmen.; failed to draw the distinction. 

In Section V., entitled * Controversies concerning the 
Moral Faculty and the Social Affections,' and including the 
Ethical theories coming between Hobbes and Butler, namely, 
Cumberland, Cudworth, Clarke, &c, he gives his objections 
to the scheme that founds moral distinctions solely on the 
Reason. Reason, as such, can never be a motive to action ; 
an argument to dissuade a man from drunkenness must appeal 
to the pains of ill-health, poverty, and infamy, that is, to 
Feelings. The influence of Reason is indirect ; it is merely a 
channel whereby the objects of desire are brought into view, 
so as to operate on the Will. 

The abused extension of the term Reason to the moral 
faculties, he ascribes to the obvious importance of Reason in 
choosing the means of action, as well as in balancing the ends, 
during which operation the feelings are suspended, delayed, 
and poised in a way favourable to our lasting interests. Hence 
the antithesis of Reason and Passion. 



IMPORTANCE OF VIRTUOUS DISPOSITIONS. 671 

In remarking upon Leibnitz's view of Disinterested Senti- 
ment, and the coincidence of Virtue with Happiness, he sketches 
his own opinion, which is that although every virtuous act 
may not lead to the greater happiness of the agent, yet the 
disposition to virtuous acts, in its intrinsic pleasures, far out- 
weighs all the pains of self-sacrifice that it can ever occasion. 
1 The whole sagacity and ingenuity of the world may be fairly 
challenged to point out a case in which virtuous dispositions, 
habits, and feelings are not conducive in the highest degree 
to the happiness of the individual ; or to maintain that he is 
not the happiest, whose moral sentiments and affections are 
such as to prevent the possibility of any unlawful advantage 
being presented to his mind/ 

Section VI. is entitled 'Foundations of a more Just Theory 
of Ethics,' and embraces a review of all the Ethical writers, 
from Butler downwards. The most palpable defect in Butler's 
scheme, is that it affords no answer to the question, ' What is 
the distinguishing quality of right actions ? ' in other words, 
What is the Standard ? There is a vicious circle in answering 
that they are commanded by Conscience, for Conscience 
itself can be no otherwise defined than as the faculty that 
approves and commands right actions. Still, he gives warm 
commendation to Butler generally ; in connexion with him he 
takes occasion to give some farther hints as to his own opinions. 
Two positions are here advanced : 1st, The moral sentiments, 
in their mature state, are a class of feelings with no other 
objects than the dispositions to voluntary actions, and the actions 
flowing from these dispositions. We approve some dispositions 
and actions, and disapprove others ; we desire to cultivate 
them, and we aim at them for something in themselves. This 
position receives light from the doctrine above quoted as to 
the supreme happiness of virtuous dispositions. His second 
position is that Conscience is an acquired principle ; which he 
repeats and unfolds in subsequent places. 

He finds fault with Hume for ascribing Virtue to qualities 
of the Understanding, and considers that this is to confound 
admiration with moral approbation. Hume's general Ethical 
doctrine, that Utility is a uniform ground of moral distinc- 
tion, he says can never be impugned until some example be 
produced of a virtue generally pernicious, or a vice gener- 
ally beneficial. But as to the theory of moral approbation, 
or the nature of the Faculty, he considers that Hume's 
doctrine of Benevolence (or, still better, Sympathy) does not 
account for our approbation of temperance and fortitude, 



672 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— MACKINTOSH. 

nor for the supremacy of the Moral Faculty over all other 
motives. 

He objects to the theory of Adam Smith, that no allowance 
is made in it for the transfer of our feelings, and the disap- 
pearing of the original reference from the view. Granting 
that our approbation began in sympathy, as Smith says, cer- 
tain it is, that the adult man approves actions and dispositions 
as right y while he is distinctly aware that no process of sym- 
pathy intervenes between the approval and its object. He 
repeats, against Smith, the criticism on Hume, that the sym- 
pathies have no imperative character of supremacy. He further 
remarks that the reference, in our actions, to the point of view 
of the spectator, is rather an expedient for preserving our im- 
partiality than a fundamental principle of Ethics. It nearly 
coincides with the Christian precept of doing unto others as 
we would they should do unfco us, — an admirable practical 
maxim, but, as Leibnitz has said truly, intended only as a cor- 
rection of self-partiality. Lastly, he objects to Smith, that 
his system renders all morality relative to the pleasure of our 
coinciding in feeling with others, which is merely to decide 
on the Faculty, without considering the Standard. Smith 
shrinks from Utility as a standard, or ascribes its power over 
our feelings to our sense of the adaptation of means to ends. 

He commends Smith for grounding Benevolence on Sym- 
pathy, whereas Butler, Hutcheson, and Hume had grounded 
Sympathy on Benevolence. 

It is in reviewing Hartley, whose distinction it was to 
open up the wide capabilities of the principle of Association, 
that Mackintosh develops at greatest length his theory of the 
derived nature of Conscience. 

Adverting to the usual example of the love of money, he 
remarks that the benevolent man might begin with an in- 
terested affection, but might end with a disinterested delight 
in doing good. Self-love, or the principle of permanent well- 
being, is gradually formed from the separate appetites, and is 
at last pursued without having them specially in view. So 
Sympathy may perhaps be the transfer, first, of our own per- 
sonal feelings to other beings, and next, of their feelings to 
ourselves, thereby engendering the social affections. It is an 
ancient and obstinate error of philosophers to regard these 
two principles — Self-love and Sympathy — as the source of the 
impelling passions and affections, instead of being the last 
results of them. 

The chief elementary feelings that go to constitute the 



ELEMENTS OF THE MORAL SENSE. 673 

moral sentiments appear to be Gratitude, Pity, Resentment, 
and Shame. To take the example of Gratitude. Acts of 
beneficence to ourselves give us pleasure ; we associate this 
pleasure with the benefactor, so as to regard him with a feel- 
ing of complacency ; and when we view other beneficent 
beings and acts there is awakened within us our own agree- 
able experience. The process is seen in the child, who con- 
tracts towards the nurse or mother all the feelings of com- 
placency arising from repeated pleasures, and extends these 
by similarity to other resembling persons. As soon as com- 
placency takes the form of action, it becomes (according to 
the author's theory, connecting conscience with will), a part 
of the Conscience. So much for the development of Grati- 
tude. Next as to Pity. The likeness of the outward signs of 
emotion makes us transfer to others our own feelings, and 
thereby becomes, even more than gratitude, a source of bene- 
volence ; being one of the first motives to impart the benefits 
connected with affection. In our sympathy with the sufferer, 
we cannot but approve the actions that relieve suffering, and 
the dispositions that prompt them. We also enter into his 
Resentment, or anger towards the causes of pain, and the 
actions and dispositions corresponding ; and this sympathetic 
anger is at length detached from special cases and extended 
to all wrong- doers ; and is the root of the most indispensable 
compound of our moral faculties, the c Sense of Justice.' 

To these internal growths, from Gratitude, Pity, and Re- 
sentment, must be added the education by means of well- 
framed penal laws, which are the lasting declaration of the 
moral indignation of mankind. These laws may be obeyed as 
mere compulsory duties ; but with the generous sentiments 
concurring, men may rise above duty to virtue, and may con- 
tract that excellence of nature whence acts of beneficence 
flow of their own accord. 

He next explains the growth of Remorse, as another ele- 
ment of the Moral Sense. The abhorrence that we feel for 
bad actions is extended to the agent; and, in spite of certain 
obstacles to its full manifestation, that abhorrence is prompted 
when the agent is self. 

The theory of derivation is bound to account for the fact, 
recognized in the language of mankind, that the Moral Faculty 
is one. The principle of association would account for the 
fusion of many different sentiments into one product, wherein 
the component parts would cease to be discerned ; but this is 
not enough. Why do these particular sentiments and no 
43 



674 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — MACKINTOSH. 

others coalesce in the total — Conscience. The answer is what 
was formerly given with reference to Butler ; namely, while 
all other feelings relate to outward objects, the feelings 
brought together in conscience, contemplate exclusively the 
dispositions and actions of voluntary agents. Conscience is thus 
an acquired faculty, but one that is universally and necessarily 
acquired. 

The derivation is farther exemplified by a comparison with 
the feelings of Taste. These may have an original reference 
to fitness — as in the beauty of a horse — but they do not attain 
their proper character until the consideration of fitness dis- 
appears. So far they resemble the moral faculty. They 
differ from it, however, in this, that taste ends in passive con- 
templation or quiescent delight ; conscience looks solely to the 
acts and dispositions of voluntary agents. This is the author's 
favourite way of expressing what is otherwise called the au- 
thority and supremacy of conscience. 

To sum up : — the principal constituents of the moral sense 
are Gratitude, Sympathy (or Pity), Resentment, and Shame; 
the secondary and auxiliary causes are Education, Imitation, 
General Opinion, Laws and Government. 

In criticising Paley, he illustrates forcibly the position, 
that Religion must pre-suppose Morality. 

His criticism of Bentham gives him an opportunity of 
remarking on the modes of carrying into effect the principle 
of Utility as the Standard. He repeats his favourite doctrine 
of the inherent pleasures of a virtuous disposition, as the 
grand circumstance rendering virtue profitable and vice un- 
profitable. He even uses the Platonic figure, and compares 
vice to mental distemper. It is his complaint against Bentham 
and the later supporters of Utility, that they have misplaced 
the application of the principle, and have encouraged the too 
frequent appeal to calculation in the details of conduct. 
Hence arise sophistical evasions of moral rules ; men will slide 
from general to particular consequences; apply the test of 
utility to actions and not to dispositions ; and, in short, take 
too much upon themselves in settling questions of moral right 
and wrong. [He might have remarked that the power of per- 
verting the standard to individual interests is not confined to 
the followers of Utility.] He introduces the saying attributed 
to Andrew Fletcher, ' that he would lose his life to serve his 
country, but would not do a base thing to save it.' 

He farther remarks on the tendency of Bentham and his 
followers to treat Ethics too juridically. He would probably 



UTILITY DEFENDED. 675 

admit that Ethics is strictly speaking a code of laws, but draws 
the line between it and the juridical code, by the distinction 
of dispositions and actions. We may have to approve the 
author of an injurious action, because it is well-meant ; the 
law must nevertheless punish it. Herein Ethics has its 
alliance with Religion, which looks at the disposition or the 
heart. 

He is disappointed at finding that Dugald Stewart, who 
made applications of the law of association and appreciated its 
powers, held back from, and discountenanced, the attempt of 
Hartley to resolve the Moral Sense, styling it ' an ingenious 
refinement on the Selfish system,' and representing those 
opposed to himself in Ethics as deriving the affections from 
* self-love.' He repeats that the derivation theory affirms the 
disinterestedness of human actions as strongly as Butler him- 
self; while it gets over the objection from the multiplication 
of original principles ; and ascribes the result to the operation 
of a real agent. 

In replying to Brown's refusal to accept the deriva- 
tion of Conscience, on the ground that the process belongs 
to a time beyond remembrance, he affirms it to be a sufficient 
theory, if the supposed action resembles what we know to be 
the operation of the principle where we have direct experience 
of it. 

His concluding Section, VII., entitled General Remarks, 
gives some farther explanations of his characteristic views. 

He takes up the principle of Utility, at the point where 
Brown bogled at it ; quoting Brown's concession, that Utility 
and virtue are so related, that there is perhaps no action 
generally felt to be virtuous that is not beneficial, and that 
every case of benefit willingly done excites approbation. He 
strikes out Brown's word ' perhaps,' as making the afiirmation 
either conjectural or useless ; and contends that the two facts, — 
morality and the general benefit, — being co-extensive, should 
be reciprocally tests of each other. He qualifies, as usual, by 
not allowing utility to be, on all occasions, the immediate 
incentive of actions. He holds, however, that the main doctrine 
is an essential corollary from the Divine Benevolence. 

He then replies specifically to the question, ' Why is utility 
not to be the sole end present to the mind of the virtuous 
agent ? ' The answer is found in the limits of man's faculties. 
Every man is not always able, on the spur of the moment, to 
calculate all the consequences of our actions. But it is not to 
be concluded from this, that the calculation of consequences is 



676 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — MACKINTOSH. 

impracticable in moral subjects. To calculate the general 
tendency of every sort of human action is, he contends, a pos- 
sible, easy, and common operation. The general good effects 
of temperance, prudence, fortitude, justice, benevolence, grati- 
tude, veracity, fidelity, domestic and patriotic affections, may 
be pronounced with as little error, as the best founded maxims 
of the ordinary business of life. 

He vindicates the rules of sexual morality on the grounds 
of benevolence. 

He then discusses the question, (on which he had charged 
Hume with mistake), 'Why is approbation confined to volun- 
tary acts ? ' He thinks it but a partial solution to say that 
approbation and disapprobation are wasted on what is not in 
the power of the will. The fall solution he considers to be 
found in the mode of derivation of the moral sentiment ; 
which, accordingly, he re-discusses at some length. He pro- 
duces the analogies of chemistry to show that compounds 
may be totally different from their elements. He insists on 
the fact that a derived pleasure is not the less a pleasure ; it 
may even survive the primary pleasure. Self-love (impro- 
perly so called) is intelligible if its origin be referred fco Asso- 
ciation, but not if it be considered as prior to the appetites 
and passions that furnish its materials. And as the pleasure 
derived from low objects may be transferred to the most pure, 
so Disinterestedness may originate with self, and yet become 
as entirely detached from that origin as if the two had never 
been connected. 

He then repeats his doctrine, that these social or dis- 
interested sentiments prompt the will as the means of their 
gratification. Hence, by a farther transfer of association, the 
voluntary acts share in the delight felt in the affections that 
determine them. We then desire to experience be?ieficent 
volitions, and to cultivate the dispositions to these. Such 
dispositions are at last desired for their own sake ; and, when 
so desired, constitute the Moral Sense, Conscience, or the 
Moral Sentiment, in its consummated form. Thus, by a 
fourth or fifth stage of derivation from the original pleasures 
and pains of our constitution, we arrive at this highly complex 
product, called our moral nature. 

Nor is this all. We must not look at the side of indigna- 
tion to the wrong-doer. We are angry at those who dis- 
appoint our wish for the happiness of others ; we make their 
resentment our own. We hence approve of the actions and 
dispositions for punishing such offenders; while we so far 



CONSCIENCE AND WILL CO-EXTENSIVE. 677 

sympathize with the culprit as to disapprove of excess of 
punishment. Such moderated anger is the sense of Justice, 
and is a new element of Conscience. Of all the virtues, this is 
the one most directly aided by a conviction of general interest 
or utility. All laws profess it as their end. Hence the 
importance of good criminal laws to the moral education of 
mankind. 

Among contributary streams to the moral faculty, he 
enumerates courage, energy, and decision, properly directed. 

He recognizes ' duties to ourselves, ' although condemning 
the expression as absurd. Intemperance, improvidence, 
timidity are morally wrong. Still, as in other cases, a man 
is not truly virtuous on such points, till he loves them for 
their own sake, and even performs them without an effort. 
These prudential qualities having an influence on the will, 
resemble in that the other constituents of Conscience. As 
a final result, all those sentiments whose object is a state 
of the will become intimately and inseparably blended in the 
unity of Conscience, the arbiter and judge of human actions, 
the lawful authority over every motive to conduct. 

In this grand coalition of the public and the private feel- 
ings, he sees a decisive illustration of the reference of moral 
sentiments to the Will. He farther recognizes in it a solution 
of the great problem of the relation of virtue to private interest. 
Qualities useful to ourselves are raised to the rank of virtues ; 
and qualities useful to others are converted into pleasures. 
In moral reasonings, we are enabled to bring home virtuous 
inducements by the medium of self-interest ; we can assure a 
man that by cultivating the disposition towards other men's 
happiness he gains a source of happiness to himself. 

The question, Why we do not morally approve in- 
voluntary actions, is now answered. Conscience is associated 
exclusively with the dispositions and actions of voluntary 
agents. Conscience and Will are co-extensive. 

A difficulty remains. ' If moral approbation involve no 
perception of beneficial tendency, how do we make out the 
coincidence of the two ? ' It might seem that the foundation 
of morals is thus made to rest on a coincidence that is 
mysterious and fantastic. According to the author, the con- 
clusive answer is this. Although Conscience rarely con- 
templates anything so distant as the welfare of all sentient 
beings, yet in detail it obviously points to the production of 
happiness. The social affections all promote happiness. 
Every one must observe the tendency of justice to the welfare 



678 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — MACKINTOSH. 

of society. The angry passions, as ministers of morality, 
remove hindrances to human welfare. The private desires 
have respect to onr own happiness. Every element of con- 
science has thus some portion of happiness for its object. All 
the affections contribute to the general well-being, although it 
is not necessary, nor would it be fit, that the agent should be 
distracted by the contemplation of that vast and remote object. 

To sum up Mackintosh : — 

I. — On the Standard, he pronounces for Utility, with 
certain modifications and explanations. The Utility is the 
remote and final justification of all actions accounted right, 
but not the immediate motive in the mind of the agent. [It 
may justly be feared, that, by placing so much stress on the 
delights attendant on virtuous action, he gives an opening for 
the admission of sentiment into the consideration of Utility.] 

II. — In the Psychology of Ethics, he regards the Con- 
science as a derived or generated faculty, the result of a 
series of associations. He assigns the primary feelings that 
enter into it, and traces the different stages of the growth. 
The distinctive feature of Conscience is its close relation to 
the Will. 

He does not consider the problem of Liberty and Necessity. 

He makes Disinterested Sentiment a secondary or derived 
feeling — a stage on the road to Conscience. While maintain- 
ing strongly the disinterested character of the sentiment, he 
considers that it may be fully accounted for by derivation 
from our primitive self-regarding feelings, and denies, as 
against Stewart and Brown, that this gives it a selfish cha- 
racter. 

He carries the process of associative growth a step 
farther, and maintains that we re-convert disinterestedness 
into a lofty delight — the delight in goodness for its own sake ; 
to attain this characteristic is the highest mark of a virtuous 
character. 

III. — -His Summum Bonum, or Theory of Happiness, is 
contained in his much iterated doctrine of the deliciousness 
of virtuous conduct, by which he proposes to effect the recon- 
ciliation of our own good with the good of others — prudence 
with virtue. Virtue is \ an inward fountain of pure delight \ 
the pleasure of benevolence, ' if it could become lasting and 
intense, would convert the heart into a heaven ;' they alone 
are happy, or truly virtuous, that do not need the motive of a 
regard to outward consequences. 

His chief Ethical precursor in this vein is Shaftesbury ; 



PLEASUREABLE AND PAINFUL SENSATIONS. 679 

but lie is easily able to produce from Theologians abundant 
iterations of it. 

IV. — He has no special views as to the Moral Code. With 
reference to the inducements to virtue, he thinks he has a 
powerful lever in the delights that the virtuous disposition 
confers on its owner. 

V. — His theory of the connexion of Ethics and Politics is 
stated in his account of Bentham, whom he charges with 
making morality too judicial. 

VI. — The relations of Morality to Religion are a matter of 
frequent and special consideration in Mackintosh. 

JAMES MILL. [1783-1836.] 

The work of James Mill, entitled the 'Analysis of the 
Human Mind,' is distinguished, in the first place, by the 
studied precision of its definitions of all leading terms, giving 
it a permanent value as a logical discipline ; and in the second 
place, by the successful carrying out of the principle of Asso- 
ciation in explaining the powers of the mind. The author 
endeavours to show that the moral feelings a,re a complex 
product or growth, of which the ultimate constituents are our 
pleasurable and painful sensations. We shall present a brief 
abstract of the course of his exposition, as given in Chapters 
XVTL— XXIII. of the Analysis. 

The pleasurable and painful sensations being assumed, it 
is important to take notice of their Causes, both immediate 
and remote, by whose means they can be secured or avoided. 
We contract a habit of passing rapidly from every sensation 
to its procuring cause ; and, as in the typical case of money, 
these causes are apt to rank higher in importance, to take a 
greater hold on the mind, than the sensations themselves. 
The mind is not much interested in attending to the sensa- 
tion ; that can provide for itself. The mind is deeply interested 
in attending to the cause. 

The author next (XIX.) considers the Ideas of the plea- 
surable sensations, and of the causes of them. The Idea of 
a pain is not the same as the pain ; it is a complex state, con- 
taining, no doubt, an element of pain ; and the name for it is 
Aversion. So the name for an idea of pleasure is Desire. 
Now, these states extend to the causes of pains and pleasures, 
though in other respects indifferent ; we have an aversion for 
a certain drug, but there is in this a transition highly illustra- 
tive of the force of the associating principle ; our real aversion 



680 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — JAMES MILL. 

being to a bitter sensation, and not to the visible appearance 
of the drug. 

Alluding (XX.) to the important difference between past 
and future time in our ideas of pleasure and pain, he defines 
Hope and Fear as the contemplation of a pleasurable or of a 
painful sensation, as future, but not certain. 

When the immediate causes of pleasurable and painful 
sensations are viewed as past or future, we have a new 
series of states. In the past, they are called Love and 
Hatred, or Aversion ; in the future, the idea of a pleasure, as 
certain in its arrival, is Joy — as probable, Hope ; the idea of 
future pain (certain) is not marked otherwise than by the 
names Hatred, Aversion, Horror; the idea of the pain as 
probable is some form of dread. 

The remote causes of our pleasures and pains are more 
interesting than the immediate causes. The reason is their 
wide command. Thus, Wealth, Power, and Dignity are causes 
cf a great range of pleasures : Poverty, Impotence, and Con- 
temptibility, of a wide range of pains. For one thing, the 
first are the means of procuring the services of our fellow- 
creatures ; this fact is of the highest consequence in morals, as 
showing how deeply our happiness is entwined with the 
actions of other beings. The author illustrates at length the 
influence of these remote and comprehensive agencies ; and as 
it is an influence entirely the result of association, it attests 
the magnitude of that power of the mind. 

But our fellow -creatures are the subjects of affections, not 
merely as the instrumentality set in motion by Wealth, Power, 
and Dignity, but in their proper personality. This leads the 
author to the consideration of the pleasurable affections of 
Friendship, Kindness, Family, Country, Party, Mankind. He 
resolves them all into associations with our primitive plea- 
sures. Thus, to take the example of Kindness, which will 
show how he deals with the disinterested affection ; — The idea 
of a man enjoying a train of pleasures, or happiness, is felt by 
everybody to be a pleasurable idea ; this can arise from 
nothing but the association of our own pleasures with the 
idea of his pleasures. The pleasurable association composed 
of the ideas^ of a man and of his pleasures, and the painful 
association composed of the idea of a man and of his pains, are 
both Affections included under one name Kindness ; although 
in the second case it has the more specific name Compassion. 

Under the other heads, the author's elucidation is fuller, 
but his principle is the same. 



THE SPECIES OF ACTIONS ENTERING INTO MOKAJLITY. 681 

He next goes on (XXII.) to Motives. When the idea of 
a Pleasure is associated with an action of onr own as the 
cause, that peculiar state of mind is generated, called a 
motive. The idea of the pleasure, without the idea of an 
action for gaining it, does not amount to a motive. Every 
pleasure may become a motive, but every motive does not end 
in action, because there may be counter-motives; and the 
strength attained by motives depends greatly on education 
The facility of being acted on by motives of a particular kind 
is a Disposition. We have, in connexion with all our leading 
pleasures and pains, names indicating their motive efficacy. 
Gluttony is both motive and disposition ; so Lust and Drunken- 
ness ; with the added sense of reprobation in all the three. 
Friendship is a name for Affection, Motive, and Disposition. 

In Chapter XXIII., the author makes the application of his 
principles to Ethics. The actions emanating from ourselves, 
combined with those emanating from our fellow- creatures, ex- 
ceed all other Causes of our Pleasures and Pains. Consequently 
such actions are objects of intense affections or regards. 

The actions whence advantages accrue are classed under 
the four titles, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, Benevolence. 
The two first — Prudence and Fortitude [in fact, Prudence] — 
express acts useful to ourselves in the first instance, to others 
in the second instance. Justice and Benevolence express acts 
useful to others in the first instance, to ourselves in the second 
instance. We have two sets of association with all these acts, 
one set with them as our own, another set with them as other 
people's. With Prudence (and Fortitude) as our own acts, 
we associate good to ourselves, either in the shape of positive 
pleasure, or as warding off pain. Thus Labour is raised to 
importance by numerous associations of both classes. Farther, 
Prudence, involving the foresight of a train of consequences, 
requires a large measure of knowledge of things animate and 
inanimate. Courage is defined by the author, incurring the 
chance of Evil, that is danger, for the sake of a preponderant 
good ; which, too, stands in need of knowledge. Now, when 
the ideas of acts of Prudence and acts of Courage have been 
associated sufficiently often with beneficial consequences, they 
become pleasurable ideas, or Affections, and they have also, 
from the nature of the ease, the character of Motives. In 
short, there is nothing in prudential conduct that may not be 
explained by a series of associations, grounded on our plea- 
surable and painful sensations, on the ideas of them, and on 
the ideas of their causes. 



682 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — JAMES MILL. 

The real difficulty attaches to Justice and to Beneficence. 

As to Justice. Men, in society, have found it essential for 
mutual benefit, that the powers of Individuals over the general 
causes of good should be fixed by certain rules, that is, Laws. 
Acts done in accordance with these rules are Just Acts; al- 
though, when duly considered, they are seen to include the 
main fact of beneficence, the good of others. To the perform- 
ance of a certain class of just acts, our Fellow- creatures annex 
penalties ; these,. therefore, are determined partly by Prudence ; 
others remain to be performed voluntarily, and for them the 
motive is Beneficence. 

What then is the source of the motives towards Bene- 
ficence H How do the ideas of acts, having the good of our 
fellows for their end, become Affections and Motives ? In the 
first place, we have associations of pleasure with all the 
pleasurable feelings of fellow- creatures, and hence, with such 
acts of ours as yield them pleasure. In the second place, 
those are the acts for procuring to ourselves the favourable 
Disposition of our Fellow-men, so that we have farther asso- 
ciations of the pleasures flowing from such favourable dispo- 
sitions. Thus, by the union of two sets of influences — two 
streams of association — the Idea of our beneficent acts becomes 
a pleasurable idea, that is, an Affection, and, being connected 
with actions of ours, is also a Motive. Such is the genesis of 
Beneficent or Disinterested impulses. 

We have nexfc a class of associations with other men's 
performance of the several virtues. The Prudence and the 
Fortitude of others are directly beneficial to them,, and in- 
directly beneficial to us ; and with both these consequences 
we have necessarily agreeable associations. The Justice and 
the Beneficence of other men are so directly beneficial to the 
objects of them, that it is impossible for us not to have plea- 
surable associations with acts of Justice and Beneficence, first 
as concerns ourselves in particular, and next as concerns the 
acts generally. Hence, therefore, the rise of Affections and 
Motives in favour of these two virtues. As there is nothing 
so deeply interesting to me as that the acts of men, regarding 
myself immediately, should be acts of Justice and Beneficence, 
and the acts regarding themselves immediately, acts of Pru- 
dence and Fortitude ; it follows that I have an interest in all 
such acts of my own as operate to cause those acts in others. 
By similar acts of our own, by the manifestation of dispositions 
to perform those acts, we obtain their reciprocal performance 
by others. There is thus a highly complex, concurring stimulus 



SUPPORTS TO BENEFICENCE. 683 

to acts of virtue, — a large aggregate of influences of association, 
the power at bottom being still our own pleasurable and pain- 
ful sensations. We must add the ascription of Praise,- an 
influence remarkable for its wide propagation and great effi- 
cacy over men's minds,, and no less remarkable as a proof of 
the range of the associating principle,, especially in its character 
of Fame, which, in the case of future fame, is a purely ideal 
or associated delight. Equally, if not more, striking are the 
illustrations from Dispraise. The associations of Disgrace, 
even when not sufficient to restrain the performance of acts 
abhorred by mankind, are able to produce the horrors of 
Remorse, the most intense of human sufferings. The love of 
praise leads by one step to the love of Praiseworthiness \ the 
dread of blame,, to the dread of Blameworthiness. 

Of these various Motives, the most constant in operation, 
and the most in use in moral training, are Praise and Blame. 
It is the sensibility to Praise and Blame — the joyful feelings 
associated with the one, and the dread associated with the 
other — that gives effect to Popular Opinion, or the Popular 
Sanction, and,, with reference to men generally, the Moral 
Sanction. 

The other motives to virtue, namely, the association of our 
own acts of Justice and Beneficence, as cause, with other 
men's as effects, are subject to strong counteraction, for we 
can rarely perform such acts without sacrifice to ourselves. 
Still, there is in all men a certain surplus of motive from this 
cause, just as there is a surplus from the association of acts of 
ours, hostile to other men, with a return of hostility on their 
part. 

The best names for the aggregate Affection, Motive, and 
Disposition in this important region of conduct, are Moral 
Approbation and Disapprobation. The terms Moral Sense, 
Sense of Right and Wrong, Love of Virtue and Hatred of 
Vice, are not equally appropriate. Virtue and Morality are 
other synonyms. 

In the work entitled, ' A Fragment on Mackintosh,' there 
are afforded farther illustrations of the author's derivation of 
the Moral Sentiment, together with an exposition and defence 
of Utility as the standard, in which his views are substantially at 
one with Bentham. Two or three references will be sufficient. 

In the statement of the questions in dispute in Morals, 
he objects to the words ' test' and * criterion/ as expressing 
the standard. He considers it a mistake to designate as a 
' test' what is the thing itself; the test of Morality is Morality. 



684 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— JAMES MILL. 

Properly, the thing testing is one thing ; the thing tested 
another thing. The same objection would apply to the use of 
the word Standard ; so that the only form of the first question 
of Ethics would be, What is morality ? What does it con- 
sist in ? [The remark is just, but somewhat hypercritical. 
The illustration from Chemical testing is not true in fact ; 
the test of gold is some essential attribute of gold, as its weight. 
And when we wish to determine as to a certain act, whether 
it is a moral act, we compare it with what we deem the essen- 
tial quality of moral acts — Utility, our Moral Instinct, &c. — 
and the operation is not improperly called testing the act. 
Since, therefore, whatever we agree upon as the essence of 
morality, must be practically used by us as a test, criterion, 
or standard, there cannot be much harm in calling this essen- 
tial quality the standard, although the designation is to a cer- 
tain extent figurative.] 

The author has some additional remarks on the derivation 
of our Disinterested feelings : he reiterates the position ex- 
pressed in the ' Analysis,' that although we have feelings 
directly tending to the good of others, they are nevertheless 
the growth of feelings that are rooted in self. That feelings 
should be detached from their original root is a well known 
phenomenon of the mind. 

His illustrations of Utility are a valuable contribution to 
the defence of that doctrine. He replies to most of the com- 
mon objections. Mackintosh had urged that the reference to 
Utility would be made a dangerous pretext for allowing ex- 
ceptions to common rules. Mill expounds at length (p. 246) 
the formation of moral rules, and retorts that there are rules 
expressly formed to make exceptions to other rules, as j astice 
before generosity, charity begins at home, &c. 

He animadverts with great severity on Mackintosh's doc- 
trines, as to the delight of virtue for its own sake, and the 
special contact of moral feelings with the will. Allowance 
being made for the great difference in the way that the two 
writers express themselves, they are at one in maintaining 
Utility to be the ultimate standard, and in regarding Conscience 
as a derived faculty of the mind. 

The author's handling of Ethics does not extend beyond 
the first and second topics — the Standard and the Faculty. 
His Standard is Utility. The Faculty is based on our Plea- 
sures and Pains, with which there are multiplied associations. 
Disinterested Sentiment is a real fact, but has its origin in 
our own proper pleasures and pains. 



MORALITY COMES UNDER LAW. 685 

Mill considers that the existing moral rules are all based 
on our estimate, correct or incorrect, of Utility. 

JOHN AUSTIN. [1790-1859.] 

Austin, in his Lectures on l The Province of Jurispru- 
dence determined/ has discussed the leading questions of 
Ethics. We give an abstract of the Ethical part. 

Lecture I. Law, in its largest meaning, and omitting 
metaphorical applications, embraces Laws set by God to his 
creatures, and Laws set by man to man. Of the laws set by 
man to man, some are established by 'political superiors, or by 
persons exercising government in nations or political societies. 
This is law in the usual sense of the word, forming the subject 
of Jurisprudence. The author terms it Positive Law. There 
is another class of laws not set by political superiors in that 
capacity. Tet some of these are properly termed laws, 
although others are only so by a close analogy. There is no 
name for the laws proper, but to the others are applied such 
names as 'moral rules/ 'the moral law/ c general or public 
opinion,' ' the law of honour or of fashion. 9 The author pro- 
poses for these laws the name positwe morality. The laws now 
enumerated differ in many important respects, but agree in 
this — that all of them are set by intelligent and rational beings 
to intelligent and rational beings. There is a figurative appli- 
cation of the word 5 law/ to the uniformities of the natural 
world, through which the field of jurisprudence- and morals 
has been deluged with muddy speculation. 

Laws properly so called are commands.. A command is 
the signification of a desire or wish, accompanied with the 
power and the purpose to inflict evil if that desire is not com- 
plied with. The person so desired is bound or obliged, or 
placed under a duty, to obey. Refusal is disobedience, or 
violation of duty. The evil to be inflicted is called a sanction, 
or an enforcement of obedience ; the term punishment expresses 
one class of sanctions. 

The term sanction is improperly applied to a Reward. 
We cannot say that an action is commanded, or that obedience 
is constrained or enforced by the offer of a reward. Again, 
when a reward is offered, a right and not an obligation is cre- 
ated : the imperative function passes to the party receiving 
the reward. In short, it is only by conditional evil, that duties 
are sanctioned or enforced. 

The correct meaning of superior and inferior is determined 
by command and obedience. 



■686 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — AUSTIN. 

Lecture II. The Divine Laws are the known commands 
of the Deity, enforced by the evils that we may snfFer here or 
hereafter for breaking them. Some of these laws are revealed, 
others unrepealed. Paley and others have proved that it was 
not the purpose of Revelation to disclose the whole of our 
duties ; the Light of Nature is an additional source. But 
how are we to interpret this Light of Nature ? 

The various hypotheses for resolving this question may be 
reduced to two: (1) an Innate Sentiment, called a Moral 
Sense, Common Sense, Practical Reason, &c. ; and (2) the 
Theory of Utility. 

The author avows his adherence to the theory of Utility, 
which he connects with the Divine Benevolence in the manner 
of Bentham. God designs the happiness of sentient beings. 
Some actions forward that purpose, others frustrate it. The 
first, God has enjoined; the second, He has forbidden. 
Knowing, therefore, the tendency of any action, we know the 
Divine command with respect to it. 

The tendency of an action is all its consequences near and 
remote, certain and probable, direct and collateral. A petty 
theft, or the evasion of a trifling tax, may be insignificant, or 
even good, in the direct and immediate consequences ; but 
before the full tendency can be weighed, we must resolve the 
question : — What would be the probable effect on the general 
happiness or good, if similar acts, or omissions, were general 
or frequent? 

When the theory of Utility is correctly stated, the current 
objections are easily refuted. As viewed by the author, 
Utility is not the fountain or source of our duties ; this must 
be commands and sanctions. But it is the index of the will 
of the law-giver, who is presumed to have for his chief end 
the happiness or good of mankind* 

The most specious objection to Utility is the supposed 
necessity of going through a calculation of the consequences 
of every act that we have to perform, an operation often 
beyond our power, and likely to be abused to forward our 
private wishes. To this, the author replies first, that sup- 
posing utility our only index, we must make the best of it. 
Of course, if we were endowed with a moral sense, a special 
organ for ascertaining our duties, the attempt to displace 
that invincible consciousness, and to thrust the principle of 
utility into the vacant seat, would be impossible and absurd. 

According to the theory of Utility, our conduct would 
conform to rules inferred from the tendencies of actions, but 



OBJECTIONS TO UTILITY ANSWERED. 687 

would not be determined by a direct resort to the principle of 
general utility. Utility would be the ultimate, not the im- 
mediate test. To preface each act or forbearance by a con- 
jecture and comparison of consequences were both superfluous 
and mischievous: — superfluous, inasmuch as the result is 
already embodied in a known rule ; and mischievous, inas- 
much as the process, if performed on the spur of the occasion, 
would probably be faulty. 

'With the rules are associated sentiments, the result of the 
Divine, or other, command to obey the rules. It is a gross 
and flagrant error to talk of substituting calculation for senti- 
ment; this is to oppose the rudder to the saiL Sentiment 
without calculation were capricious; calculation without 
sentiment is inert. 

There are cases where the specific consequences of an 
action are so momentous as to overbear the rule; for ex- 
ample, resistance to a bad government, which the author 
calls an anomalous question, to be tried not by the rule, but 
by a direct resort to the ultimate or presiding principle, and 
by a separate calculation of good and evil. Such was the 
political emergency of the Commonwealth, and the American 
revolution. It would have been well, the author thinks, if 
utility had been the sole guide in both cases. 

There is a second objection to Utility, more perplexing 
to deal with. How can we know fully and correctly all the 
consequences of actions ? The answer is that Ethics, as a 
science of observation and induction, has been formed, through 
a long succession of ages, by many and separate contributions 
from many and separate discoverers. Like all other sciences, 
it is progressive, although unfortunately, subject to special 
drawbacks. The men that have enquired, or affected to 
enquire, into Ethics, have rarely been impartial ; they have 
laboured under prejudices or sinister interests ; and have been 
the advocates of foregone conclusions. There is not on this 
subject a concurrence or agreement of numerous and impartial 
enquirers. Indeed, many of the legal and moral rules of the 
most civilized communities arose in the infancy of the human 
mind, partly from caprices of the fancy (nearly omnipotent 
with barbarians), and partly from an imperfect apprehension 
of general utility, the result of a narrow experience. Thus 
the diffusion and the advancement of ethical truth encounter 
great and peculiar obstacles, only to be removed by a better 
general education extended to the mass of the people. It is 
desirable that the community should be indoctrinated with 



688 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — AUSTIN. 

sound views of property, and with the dependence of wealth 
upon the true principle of population, discovered by Malthus, 
all which they are competent to understand. 

The author refers to Paley's Moral Philosophy as an 
example of the perverting tendency of narrow and domineering 
interests in the domain of ethicSo With many commendable 
points, there is, in that work ? much ignoble truckling to the 
dominant and influential few, and a deal of shabby sophistry 
in defending abuses that the few were interested in upholding. 

As a farther answer to the second objection, he remarks, 
that it applies to every theory of ethics that supposes our 
duties to be set by the Deity. Christianity itself is defective, 
considered as a system of rules for the guidance of human 
conduct. 

He then turns to the alternative of a Moral Sense. This 
involves two assumptions. 

First, Certain sentiments, or feelings of approbation or 
disapprobation, accompany our conceptions of certain human 
actions. These feelings are neither the result of our reflection 
on the tendencies of actions, nor the result of education ; the 
sentiments would follow the conception, although we had 
neither adverted to the good or evil tendency of the actions, 
nor become aware of the opinions of others regarding them. 
This theory denies that the sentiments known to exist can be 
produced by education. We approve and disapprove of 
actions we know not why. 

The author adapts Paley's supposition of the savage, in 
order to express strongly what the moral sense implies. But 
we will confine ourselves to his reasonings. Is there, he asks, 
any evidence of our being gifted with such feelings ? The 
very putting of such a question would seem, a sufficient proof 
that we are not so endowed. There ought to be no more 
doubt about them, than about hunger or thirst. 

It is alleged in their favour that our judgments of rectitude 
and depravity are immediate and voluntary. The reply is 
that sentiments begotten by association are no less prompt and 
involuntary than our instincts. Our response to a money 
gain, or a money loss, is as prompt as our compliance with the 
primitive appetites of the system. We begin by loving know- 
ledge as a means to ends ; but, in time, the end is inseparably 
associated with the instrument. So a moral sentiment 
dictated by utility, if often exercised, would be rapid and 
direct in its operation. 

It is farther alleged, as a proof of the innate character of 



PREVAILING MISCONCEPTIONS REGARDING UTILITY. 689 

the moral judgments, that the moral sentiments of all men are 
precisely alike. The argument may be put thus : — No opinion 
or sentiment resulting from observation and induction is held 
or felt by all mankind : Observation and induction, as applied 
to the same subject, lead different men to different conclusions. 
Now, the judgments passed internally on the rectitude or 
pravity of actions, or the moral sentiments, are precisely alike 
with all men. Therefore, our moral sentiments are not the 
result of our inductions of the tendencies of actions ; nor were 
they derived from others, and impressed by authority and 
example. Consequently, the moral sentiments are instinctive, 
or ultimate and inscrutable facts. 

To refute such an argument is superfluous ; it is based on 
a groundless assertion. The moral sentiments of men have 
differed to infinity. With regard to a few classes of actions, the 
moral judgments of most, though not of all, men have been 
alike. With regard to others, they have differed, through every 
shade or degree, from slight diversity to direct opposition. 

But this is exactly what we should expect on the principle 
of utility. With regard to some actions, the dictates of utility 
are the same at all times and places, and are so obvious as 
hardly to admit of mistake or doubt. On the other hand, 
men's positions in different ages and nations are in many 
respects widely different ; so that what was useful there and 
then is useless or pernicious here and now. Moreover, since 
human tastes are various, and human reason is fallible, men's 
moral sentiments often widely differ in the same positions. 

He next alludes to some prevailing misconceptions in 
regard to utility. One is the confusion of the test with the 
motive. The general good is the test, or rather the index to 
the ultimate measure or test, the Divine commands ; but it is 
not in all, or even in most cases, the motive or inducement. 

The principle of utility does not demand that we shall 
always or habitually attend to the general good ; although it 
does demand that we shall not pursue our own particular 
good by means that are inconsistent with that paramount 
object. It permits the pursuit of our own pleasures as plea- 
sure. Even as regards the good of others, it commonly re- 
quires us to be governed by partial, rather than by general 
benevolence ; by the narrower circle of family and friends 
rather than by the larger humanity that embraces mankind. 
It requires us to act where we act with the utmost effect ; that 
is, within the sphere best known to us. The limitations to 
this principle, the adjustment of the selfish to the social mo- 
44 



690 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— AUSTIN. 

tives, of partial sympathy to general benevolence, belong to 
the detail of ethics. 

The second misconception of Utility is to confound it with 
a particular hypothesis concerning the Origin of Benevolence, 
commonly styled the selfish system. Hartley and some others 
having affirmed that benevolence is not an ultimate fact, but 
an emanation from self-love, through the association of ideas, 
it has been fancied that these writers dispute the existence of 
disinterested benevolence or sympathy. Now, the selfish 
system, in its literal import, is flatly inconsistent with obvious 
facts, but this is not the system contended for by the writers in 
question. Still, this distortion has been laid hold of by the 
opponents of utility, and maintained to be a necessary part of 
that system ; hence the supporters of utility are styled ' selfish, 
sordid, and cold-blooded calculators.' But, as already said, 
the theory of utility is not a theory of motives ; it holds equally 
good whether benevolence be what it is called, or merely a 
provident regard to self : whether it be a simple fact, or en- 
gendered by association on self-regard. Paley mixed up Utility 
with self-regarding motives ; but his theory of these is miserably 
shallow and defective, and amounted to a denial of genuine 
benevolence or sympathy. 

Austin's Fifth Lecture is devoted to a full elucidation of 
the meanings of Law. He had, at the outset, made the dis- 
tinction between Laws properly so called, and Laws impro- 
perly so called. Of the second class, some are closely allied 
to Laws proper, possessing in fact their main or essential 
attributes ; others are laws only by metaphor. Laws proper, 
and those closely allied to them among laws proper, are 
divisible into three classes. The first are the Divine Law or 
Laws. The second is named Positive Lata or Positive Laws ; 
and corresponds with Legislation. The third he calls Positive 
Morality, or positive moral rules ; it is the same as Morals or 
Ethics. 

Reverting to the definition of Law, he gives the following 
three essentials : — 1. Every law is a command, and emanates 
from a determinate source or another. 2. Every sanction is 
an eventual evil annexed to a command. 3. Every duty sup- 
poses a command whereby it is created. Now, tried by these 
tests, the laws of God are laws proper ; so are positive laws, 
by which are meant laws established by monarchs as supreme 
political superiors, by subordinate political superiors, and by 
subjects, as private persons, in pursuance of legal rights. 

But as regards Positive Morality, or moral rules, some 



MORAL RULES AS LAWS. 691 

have so far the essentials of an imperative law or rale, that they 
are rules set by men to men. But they are not set by men as 
political superiors, nor by men as private persons, in pursu- 
ance of legal rights ; in this respect they differ from positive 
laws, they are not clothed with legal sanctions. 

The most important department of positive morality 
includes the laws set or imposed by general opinion, as for ex- 
ample the laws of honour, and of fashion. Now these are not 
laws in the strict meaning of the word, because the authors 
are an indeterminate or uncertain aggregate of persons. Still, 
they have the closest alliance with Laws proper, seeing that 
being armed with a sanction, they impose a duty. The per- 
sons obnoxious to the sanction generally do or forbear the 
acts enjoined or forbidden; which is all that can happen under 
the highest type of law. 

The author then refers to Locke's division of law, which, 
although faulty in the analysis, and inaptly expressed, tallies 
in the main with what he has laid down. 

Of Metaphorical or figurative laws, the most usual is that 
suggested by the fact of uniformity, which is one of the ordi- 
nary consequences of a law proper. Such are the laws of 
nature, or the uniformities of co-existence and succession in 
natural phenomena. 

Another metaphorical extension is to a model or pattern, 
because a law presents something as a guide to human con- 
duct. In this sense, a man may set a law to himself, meaning 
a plan or model, and not a law in the proper sense of a com- 
mand. So a rule of art is devoid of a sanction, and therefore 
of the idea of duty. 

A confusion of ideas also exists as to the meaning of a 
sanction. Bentham styles the evils arising in the course of 
nature physical sanctions, as if the omission to guard against 
fire were a sin or an immorality, punished by the destruction 
of one's house. But although this is an evil happening to a 
rational being, and brought on by a voluntary act or omission, 
it is not the result of a law in the proper sense of the term. 
What is produced naturally, says Locke, is produced without 
the intervention of a law. 

Austin is thus seen to be one of the most strenuous advo- 
cates of Utility as the Standard, and is distinguished for the 
lucidity of his exposition, and the force of his replies to the 
objections made against it. 

He is also the best expounder of the relationship of 
Morality to Law. 



692 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — WHEWELL. 



WILLIAM WHEWELL. [1794-1866.] 

Dr. Whewell's chief Ethical works are, ' Elements of 
Morality, including Polity/ and ' Lectures on the History of 
Moral Philosophy in England.' 

We may refer for his views to either work. The follow- 
ing abstract is taken from the latest (4th) edition of his 
Elements (1864). 

In the Preface he indicates the general scope of the work. 
Morality has its root in the Common Nature of Man ; a 
scheme of Moralitv must conform to the Common Sense of 
mankind, in so far as that is consistent with itself. Now, 
this Common Sense of Mankind has in every age led to two 
seemingly opposite schemes of Morality, the one making 
Virtue, and the other making Pleasure, the rule of action. 
On the one side, men urge the claims of Rectitude, Duty, 
Conscience, the Moral Faculty; on the other, they declare 
Utility, Expediency, Interest, Enjoyment, to be the proper 
guides. 

Both systems are liable to objections. Against the scheme 
of Pleasure, it is urged that we never, in fact, identify virtue 
as merely useful. Against the scheme of Virtue, it is main- 
tained that virtue is a matter of opinion, and that Conscience 
varies in different ages, countries, and persons. It is necessary 
that a scheme of Morality should surmount both classes of 
objections ; and the author therefore attempts a reconciliation 
of the two opposing theories. 

He prepares the way by asking, whether there are any 
actions, or qualities of actions, universally approved ; and 
whether there are any moral rules accepted by the Common 
Sense of mankind as universally valid ? The reply is that 
there are such, as, for example, the virtues termed Veracity, 
Justice, Benevolence. He does not enquire why these are 
approved ; he accepts the fact of the approval, and considers 
that here we have the basis of a Moral System, not liable to 
either of the opposing objections above recited. 

He supposes, however, that the alleged agreement may be 
challenged, first, as not existing ; and next, as insufficient to 
reason from. 

1. It may be maintained that the excellence of the three 
virtues named is not universally assented to ; departures from 
them being allowed both in practice and in theory. The 
answer is, that the principles may be admitted, although the 
interpretation varies. Men allow Fidelity and Kindness to 



THERE ARE ACTIONS UNIVERSALLY APPROVED. 693 

be virtues, although in an early stage of moral progress they 
do not make the application beyond their own friends ; it is 
only at an advanced stage that they include enemies. The 
Romans at first held stranger and enemy to be synonymous ; 
but afterwards they applauded the sentiment of the poet, 
homo sum, &c. Moral principles must be what we approve 
of, when we speak in the name of the whole human species. 

2. It may be said that such principles are too vague and 
loose to reason from. A verbal agreement in employing the 
terms truthful, just, humane, does not prove a real agreement 
as to the actions ; and the particulars must be held as 
explaining the generalities. 

The author holds this objection to be erroneous ; and the 
scheme of his work is intended to meet it. He proceeds as 
follows : — 

He allows that we must fix what is meant by right, which 
carries with it the meaning of Virtue and of Duty. Now, in 
saying an action is right, there is this idea conveyed, namely, 
that we render such a reason for it, as shall be paramount 
to all other considerations. Right must be the Supreme Rule. 
How then are we to arrive at this rule ? 

The supreme rule is the authority over all the faculties 
and impulses ; and is made up of the partial rules according 
to the separate faculties, powers, and impulses. We are to 
look, in the first instance, to the several faculties or depart- 
ments of the mind ; for, in connexion with each of these, we 
shall find an irresistible propriety inherent in the very nature 
of the faculty. 

For example, man lives in the society of fellow-men ; his 
actions derive their meaning from this position. He has the 
faculty of Speech, whereby his actions are connected with 
other men. Now, as man is under a supreme moral rule, 
[this the author appears to assume in the very act of proving 
it], there must be a rule of right as regards the use of Speech ; 
which rule can be no other than truth and falsehood. In 
other words, veracity is a virtue. 

Again, man, as a social being, has to divide with others 
the possession of the world, in other words, to possess Pro- 
perty ; whence there must be a rule of Property, that is, 
each man is to have his own. Whence Justice is seen to be 
a virtue. 

The author thinks himself at one with the common notions 
of mankind in pronouncing that the Faculty of Speech, the 
Desire of Possessions, and the Affections, are properly regu- 



694 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — WHEWELL. 

lated, not by any extraneous purposes or ends to be served 
by them, but by Veracity, Justice, and Humanity, respec- 
tively. 

He explains his position farther, by professing to follow 
Butler in the doctrine that, through the mere contemplation 
of our human faculties and springs of action, we can discern 
certain relations which must exist among them by the neces- 
sity of man's moral being. Butler maintains that, by merely 
comparing appetite with conscience as springs of action, we 
see conscience is superior and ought to rule ; and Whewell 
conceives this to be self-evident, and expresses it by stating 
that the Lower parts of our nature are to be governed by the 
Higher. Men being considered as social beings, capable of 
mutual understanding through speech, it is self-evident that 
their rule must include veracity. In like manner, it is self- 
evident from the same consideration of social relationship, 
that each man should abstain from violence and anger to- 
wards others, that is, love his fellow-men. 

Remarking on the plea of the utilitarian, that truth may 
be justified by the intolerable consequences of its habitual 
violation, he urges that this is no reason against its being 
intuitively perceived : just as the axioms of geometry, although 
intuitively felt, are confirmed by showing the incongruities 
following on their denial. He repeats the common allegation 
in favour of ti priori principles generally, that no consideration 
of evil consequences would give the sense of universality of 
obligation attaching to the fundamental moral maxims ; and 
endeavours to show that his favourite antithesis of Idea and 
Fact conciliates the internal essence and the external conditions 
of morality. The Idea is invariable and universal ; the Fact, 
or outward circumstances, may vary historically and geo- 
graphically. Morality must in some measure be dependent 
on Law, but yet there is an Idea of Justice above law. 

It very naturally occurred to many readers of Whewell's 
scheme, that in so far as he endeavours to give any reason for 
the foundations of morality, he runs in a vicious circle. He 
proposes to establish his supreme universal rule, by showing 
it to be only a summing up of certain rules swaying the several 
portions or departments of our nature — Veracity, Justice, &c, 
while, in considering the obligation of these rules, he assumes 
that man is a moral being, which is another way of saying 
that he. is to be under a supreme moral rule. In his latest 
edition, the author has replied to this charge, but so briefly 
as to cast no new light on his position. He only repeats that 



THE SPRINGS OF ACTION. 695 

the Supreme rule of Human Action is given by the constitu- 
tion and conditions of human nature. His ethical principle 
may be not unfairly expressed by saying, that he recognizes a 
certain intrinsic fitness in exercising the organ of speech 
according to its social uses, that is, in promoting a right 
understanding among men ; and so with Justice, as the fitness 
of property, and Humanity, as the fitness of the Affections. 
This fitness is intuitively felt. Human happiness is admitted 
to be a consequence of these rules ; but happiness is not a 
sufficient end in itself; morality is also an end in itself. Human 
happiness is not to be conceived or admitted, except as con- 
taining a moral element ; in addition to the direct gratifications 
of human life, we must include the delight of virtue. [How 
men can be compelled to postpone their pleasurable sense of 
the good things of life, till they have contracted a delight in 
virtue for its own sake, the author does not say. It has been 
the great object of moralists in all ages, to impart by education 
such a state of mind as to spoil the common gratifications, 
if they are viciously procured ; the comparatively little suc- 
cess of the endeavour, shows that nature has done little to 
favour it.] 

The foregoing is an abstract of the Introduction to the 
4th Edition of the Elements of Morality. We shall present 
the author's views respecting the other questions of Morality 
in the form of the usual summary. 

I.— As regards the Standard, enough has been already 
indicated. 

II.- — The Psychology of the Moral Faculty is given by 
Whewell as part of a classification of our Active Powers, or, 
as he calls them, Springs of Action. These are: I. — The 
Appetites or Bodily Desires, as Hunger and Thirst, and the 
desires of whatever things have been found to gratify the 
senses. II. — The Affections, which are directed to persons ; 
they fall under the two heads Love and Anger. III. — The 
Mental Desires, having for their objects certain abstractions. 
They are the desire of Safety, including Security and Liberty ; 
the desire of Having, or Property ; the desire of Society in 
all its forms — Family Society and Civil Society, under which 
is included the need of Mutual Understanding ; the desire of 
Superiority ; and the Desire of Knowledge. IV.— The Moral 
Sentiments. Our judgment of actions as right or wrong is 
accompanied by certain Affections or Sentiments, named 
Approbation and Disapprobation, Indignation and Esteem ; 
these are the Moral Sentiments. V. — The Reflex Sentiments, 



696 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — WHEWELL. 

namely, the desires of being Loved, of Esteem or Admiration, 
of our own Approval ; and generally all springs of action 
designated by the word self — for example, self-love. 

With regard to the Moral Sentiment, or Conscience, in 
particular, the author's resolution of Morality into Moral 
Rules, necessarily supposes an exercise of the Reason, to- 
gether with the Affections above described. He expressly 
mentions ' the Practical Reason, which guides us in applying 
Rules to our actions, and in discerning the consequences of 
actions.' He does not allow Individual Conscience as an ulti- 
mate or supreme authority, but requires it to be conformed to 
the Supreme Moral Rules, arrived at in the manner above 
described. 

On the subject of Disinterestedness, he maintains a modi- 
fication of Paley's selfish theory. He allows that some persons 
are so far disinterested as to be capable of benevolence and 
self-sacrifice, without any motive of reward or punishment ; 
but ' to require that all persons should be such, would be not 
only to require what we certainly shall not find, but to put 
the requirements of our Morality in a shape in which it can- 
not convince men.' Accordingly, like Paley, he places the 
doctrine that ' to promote the happiness of others will lead to 
our own happiness,' exclusively on the ground of Religion. 
He honours the principle that I virtue is happiness,' but pre- 
fers for mankind generally the form, ' virtue is the way to 
happiness.' In short, he places no reliance on the purely 
Disinterested impulses of mankind, although he admits the 
existence of such. 

III. — He discusses the Summum Bonum, or Happiness, 
only with reference to his Ethical theory. The attaining of 
the objects of our desires yields Enjoyment or Pleasure, which 
cannot be the supreme end of life, being distinguished from, 
and opposed to, Duty. Happiness is Pleasure and Duty com- 
bined and harmonized by Wisdom. i As moral beings, our 
Happiness must be found in our Moral Progress, and in the 
consequences of our Moral Progress ; we must be happy by 
being virtuous.' 

He complains of the moralists that reduce virtue to 
Happiness (in the sense of human pleasure), that they fail 
to provide a measure of happiness, or to resolve it into 
definite elements ; and again urges the impossibility of calcu- 
lating the whole consequences of an action upon human 
happiness. 

IV. — With respect to the Moral Code 3 Whewell's arrange- 



THE MORAL CODE. 697 

inent is interwoven with his derivation of moral rules. He 
enumerates five Cardinal Virtues as the substance of morality : 
—Benevolence, which gives expansion to our Love ; Justice, 
as prescribing the measure of our Mental Desires ; Truth, the 
law of Speech in connexion with its purpose ; Purity, the con- 
trol of the Bodily Appetites ; and Order (obedience to the 
Laws), which engages the Reason in the consideration of 
Rules and Laws for defining Virtue and Vice. Thus the five 
leading branches of virtue have a certain parallelism to the five 
chief classes of motives — Bodily Appetites, Mental Desires, 
Love and its opposite, the need of a Mutual Understanding, 
and Reason. 

As already seen, he considers it possible to derive every 
one of these virtues from the consideration of man's situation 
with reference to each : — Benevolence, or Humanity, from our 
social relationship; Justice, from the nature of Property; 
Truth, from the employment of Language for mutual Under- 
standing ; Purity, from considering the lower parts of our 
nature (the Appetites) as governed by the higher ; and Order, 
from the relation of Governor and Governed. By a self- 
evident, intuitive, irresistible consideration of the circum- 
stances of the case, we are led to these several virtues in the 
detail, and their sum is the Supreme Rule of Life. 

Not content with these five express moral principles, he 
considers that the Supreme Law requires, as adjuncts, two 
other virtues ; to these he gives the names Earnestness, or 
Zeal, and Moral Purpose, meaning that everything whatso- 
ever should be dono for moral ends. 

V. — The relation of Ethics to Politics in Whewell's system 
is one of intimacy, and yet of independence. The Laws of 
States supply the materials of human action, by defining pro- 
perty, &c, for the time being ; to which definitions morality 
must correspond. On the other hand, morality supplies the 
Idea, or ideal, of Justice, to which the Laws of Society should 
progressively conform themselves. The Legislator and the 
Jurist must adapt their legislation to the point of view of the 
Moralist ; and the moralist, while enjoining obedience to their 
dictates, should endeavour to correct the inequalities produced 
by laws, and should urge the improvement of Law, to make 
it conformable to morality. The Moral is in this way con- 
trasted with the Jural, a useful word of the author's coining. 
He devotes a separate Book, entitled ' Rights and Obligations,' 
to the foundations of Jurisprudence. He makes a five-fold 
division of Rights, grounded on his classification of the Springs 



698 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — FERRIEIL 

of Human Action ; Rights of Personal Security ^Property y Con- 
tract, Marriage, Government; and justifies this division as 
against others proposed by jurists. 

VI.- — He introduces the Morality of Religion as a supple- 
ment to the Morality of Reason. The separation of the two* 
he remarks, 'enables us to trace the results of the moral 
guidance of human Reason consistently and continuously, 
while we still retain a due sense of the superior authority of 
Religion/ As regards the foundations of Natural and Revealed 
Religion, he adopts the line of argument most usual with 
English Theologians. 

JAMES FREDERICK FERKIER. [1808-64.] 

In his 'Lectures on Greek Philosophy' (Remains, Vol. I.), 
Ferrier has indicated his views on the leading Ethical con- 
troversies. 

These will appear, if we select his conclusions j on the three 
following points : — The Moral Sense,, the nature of Sympathy, 
and the Summum Bonum. 

1. He considers that the Sophists first distinctly broached 
the question- — What is man by nature, and what is he by con- 
vention or fashion ? 

' This prime question of moral philosophy, as I have called 
it, is no easy one to answer, for it is no easy matter to effect 
the discrimination out of which the answer must proceed. It 
is a question, perhaps, to which no complete, but only an ap- 
proximate, answer can be returned. One common mistake is » 
to ascribe more to the natural man than properly belongs to 
him, to ascribe to him attributes and endowments which 
belong only to the social and artificial man. Some writers— 
Hutcheson, for example, and he is followed by many others — 
are of opinion that man naturally has a conscience or moral 
sense which discriminates between right and wrong, just as 
he has naturally a sense of taste, which distinguishes between 
sweet and bitter, and a sense of sight, which discriminates 
between red and blue, or a sentient organism, which dis- 
tinguishes between pleasure and pain. That man has by 
nature, and from the first, the possibility of attaining to aeon- 
science is not to be denied. That he has within him by birth- 
right something out of which conscience is developed, I firmly 
believe ; and what this is I shall endeavour by-and-by to show 
when I come to speak of Sokrates and his philosophy as 
opposed to the doctrines of the Sophists. But that the man 



WHAT IS MAN BY NATURE? 69& 

is furnished by nature with a conscience ready-made, just as 
he is furnished with a ready-made sensational apparatus, this 
is a doctrine in which I have no faith, and which I regard as 
altogether erroneous. It arises out of the disposition to 
attribute more to the natural man than properly belongs to 
him. The other error into which inquirers are apt to fall in 
making a discrimination between what man is by nature, and 
what he is by convention, is the opposite of the one just men- 
tioned. They sometimes attribute to the natural man less 
than properly belongs to him. And this, I think, was the 
error into which the Sophists were betrayed. They f 11 into 
it inadvertently, and not with any design of embracing or 
promulgating erroneous opinions.' 

2. "With reference to Sympathy, he differs from Adam 
Smith's view, that it is a native and original affection of the 
heart, like hunger and thirst. Mere feeling,, he contends, 
can never take a man out of self. It is thought that overleaps 
this boundary ; not the feeling of sensation, but the thought 
of one's self and one's sensations,, gives the ground and the 
condition of sympathy. Sympathy has self-consciousness for 
its foundation. Very young children have little sympathy, 
because in them the idea of self is but feebly developed. 

3. In his chapter on the Cynic and Cyrenaic schools, he 
discusses at length the summum bonum, or Happiness, and, 
by implication, the Ethical end,, or Standard. He considers 
that men have to. keep in view two ends ; the one the main- 
tenance of their own nature, as rational and thinking beings ; 
the other their happiness or pleasure. He will not allow that 
we are to do right at all hazards,, irrespective of utility ; yet 
he considers that there is something defective in the scheme 
that sets aside virtue as the good, and enthrones happiness in 
its place. He sums up as follows : — 

' We thus see that a complete body of ethics should embrace 
two codes, two systems of rules, the one of which we may call 
the fundamental or antecedent, or under-ground ethics, as 
underlying the other ;. and the other of which we may call the 
upper or subsequent, or above-ground ethics, as resting on, 
and modified by the former. The under-ground ethics would 
inculcate on man the necessity of being what he truly is, 
namely, a creature of reason and of thought; in short, the 
necessity of being a man, and of preserving to himself this 
status. Here the end is virtue, that is, the life and health of 
the soul, and nothing but this. The above-ground ethics 
would inculcate on man the necessity of being a happy man. 



700 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — M ANSEL. 

It is not enough for man to he ; he must, moreover, if possible, 
he happy. The fundamental ethics look merely to his being, 
i.e., his being rational ; the upper ethics look principally to 
his being happy, but they are bound to take care that in all 
his happiness he does nothing to violate his rationality, the 
health and virtue of the soul.' 

HENRY LONGUEVILLE HANSEL. 

Mr. Mansel, in his - Metaphysics/ has examined the question 
of a moral standard, and the nature of the moral faculty, ac- 
cepting, with slight and unimportant modifications, the cur- 
rent theory of a moral sense. 

1. The Moral Faculty. That the conceptions of right and 
wrong are sui generis, is proved (1) by the fact that in all 
languages there are distinct terms for ' right ' and ' agreeable f 
(2) by the testimony of consciousness ; and (3) by the 
mutual inconsistencies of the antagonists of a moral sense. 
The moral faculty is not identical with Reason ; for the 
understanding contributes to truth only one of its ele- 
ments, namely, the concept; in addition, the concept must 
agree with the fact as presented in intuition. The moral 
sense is usually supposed to involve the perception of qualities 
only in so far as they are pleasing or displeasing. To this 
representation Mr. Mansel objects. In an act of moral con- 
sciousness two things are involved : a perception or judgment, 
and a sentiment or feeling. But the judgment itself may be 
farther divided into two parts : * the one, an individual fact, 
presented now and here ; the other, a general law, valid 
always and everywhere.' This is the distinction between 
presentative and representative Knowledge. In every act of 
consciousness there is some individual fact presented, and an 
operation of the understanding. * A conscious act of pure 
moral sense, like a conscious act of pure physical sense, if it 
ever takes place at all, takes place at a time of which we have 
no remembrance, and of which we can give no account.' The 
intuitive element may be called conscience ; the representing 
element is the understanding. On another point he differs 
from the ordinary theory. It is commonly said that we imme- 
diately perceive the moral character of acts, whether by our- 
selves or by others. But this would implicate two facts, 
neither of which we can be conscious of: (1) a law binding 
on a certain person, and (2) his conduct as agreeing or dis- 
agreeing with that law. Now, 1 can infer the existence of 



THE MORAL tfATUKE OF GOD. 701 

such a law only by representing his mind as constituted like 
my own. We can, in fact, immediately perceive moral quali- 
ties only in our own actions. 

2. The Moral Standard. This is treated as a branch of 
Ontology, and designated the \ Real in morality/ He declares 
that Kant's notion of an absolute moral law, binding by its 
inherent power over the mind, is a mere fiction. The differ- 
ence between inclination and the moral imperative is merely 
a difference between lower and higher pleasure. The moral 
law can have no authority unless imposed by a superior, as a 
law emanating from a lawgiver. If man is not accountable 
to some higher being, there is no distinction between duty 
and pleasure. The standard of right and wrong is the moral 
nature (not the arbitrary will) of God. # Now, as we cannot 
know God — an infinite being, — so we have but a relative con- 
ception of morality. We may have lower and higher ideas of 
duty. Morality therefore admits of progress. But no advance 
in morality contradicts the principles previously acknowledged, 
however it may vary the acts whereby those principles are 
carried out. And each advance takes its place in the mind, 

* ' The theory which places the standard of morality in the Divine 
nature must not be confounded with that which places it in the arbitrary 
will of God. God did not create morality by his will ; it is inherent in 
his nature, and co-eternal with himself; nor can he be conceived as 
capable of reversing it.' The distinction here drawn does not avoid the 
fatal objection to the simpler theory, namely, that it takes away the moral 
character of God. The acts of a sovereign cannot, with any propriety, as 
Austin has shown, be termed either legal or illegal ; in like manner, if 
God is a moral lawgiver, if * he is accountable to no one,' then ■ his duty 
and his pleasure are undistinguishable from each other,' and he cannot 
without self-contradiction be called a moral being. Even upon Mr. 
Mansel's own theory, it is hardly correct to say that * God did not create 
morality by his will.' Morality involves two elements — one, rules of 
conduct, the other, an obligation to observe them. Now, the authority 
or obligatoriness of moral laws has been made to depend upon the will of 
God, so that, prior to that will, morality could not exist. Hence the only 
part of morality that can be co-eternal with God, is simply the rules of 
morality, without their obligatoriness, the salt without its savour. The 
closing assertion that God cannot reverse morality, may mean either that 
it would be inconsistent with his immutability to reverse the laws he had 
himself established, or that he is compelled by his nature to impose 
certain rules, and no others. The first supposition is a truism; the 
second is not proved. For, since Mr. Mansel has discarded as a fiction any 
' absolute law of duty,' it is hard to conjecture whence he could derive 
any compulsory choice of rules. Why God commands some things in 
preference to others — whether from a regard to the happiness of all his 
creatures, or of some only ; whether with a view to his own glory, or 
from conformity with some abstract notion- — has been much disputed,- 
and it is quite conceivable that he may not adopt any of those objects. 



702 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — JOHN STUART MILL. 

not as a question to be supported by argument, but as an 
axiom to be intuitively admitted. Each, principle appears 
true and irreversible so far as it goes, but it is liable to be 
merged in a more comprehensive formula. It is an error of 
philosophers to imagine that they have an absolute standard 
of morals, and thereupon to set out a priori the criterion of a 
possibly true revelation. Kant said that the revealed com- 
mands of God could have no religious value, unless approved 
by the moral reason ; and Fichte held that no true revelation 
could contain any intimation of future rewards and punish- 
ments, or any moral rule not deducible from the principles of 
the practical reason. Bat revelation has enlightened the 
practical reason, as by the maxim — to love God with all thy 
heart, and tny neighbour as thyself — a maxim, says Mr. 
Mansel, that philosophy in vain toiled after, and subsequently 
borrowed without acknowledgment, 

JOHN STUAET MILL. 

Mr. J. S. Mill examines the basis of Ethics in a small work 
entitled Utilitarianism. 

After a chapter of General Remarks, he proposes (Chapter 
II.) to enquire, What Utilitarianism is ? This creed holds 
that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote 
happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of 
happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the ab- 
sence of pain ; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of 
pleasure. The things included under pleasure and pain may 
require farther explanation ; but this does not affect the 
general theory. To the accusation that pleasure is a mean 
and grovelling object of pursuit, the answer is, that human 
beings are capable of pleasures that are not grovelling. It is 
compatible with utility to recognize some kinds of pleasure as 
more valuable than others. There are pleasures that, irre- 
spective of amount, are held by all persons that have experi- 
enced them to be preferable to others. Few human beings 
would consent to become beasts, or fools, or base, in con- 
sideration of a greater allowance of pleasure. Inseparable 
from the estimate of pleasure is a sense of dignity, which 
determines a preference among enjoyments. 

But this distinction in kind is not essential to the justi- 
fication of the standard of Utility. That standard is not the 
agent's own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of 
happiness altogether. However little the higher virtues 



HAPPINESS THE ETHICAL END. 703 

might contribute to one's own happiness, there can be no 
doubt that the world in general gains by them. 

Another objection to the doctrine is, that happiness is a 
thing unattainable, and that no one has a right to it. Not 
only can men do without happiness, but renunciation is the 
first condition of all nobleness of character. 

In reply, the author remarks that, supposing happiness 
impossible, the prevention of unhappiness might still be an 
object, which is a mode of Utility. But the alleged impossi- 
bility of happiness is either a verbal quibble or an exaggera- 
tion. No one contends for a life of sustained rapture ; 
occasional moments of such, in an existence of few and 
transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a pre- 
dominance of the active over the passive, and moderate 
expectations on the whole, constitute a life worthy to be 
called happiness. Numbers of mankind have been satisfied 
with much less. There are two great factors of enjoyment — 
tranquillity and excitement. With the one, little pleasure 
will suffice ; with the other 5 considerable pain can be endured. 
It does not appear impossible to secure both in alternation. 
The principal defect in persons of fortunate lot is to care for 
nobody but themselves ; this curtails the excitements of life, 
and makes everything dwindle as the end approaches. Another 
circumstance rendering life unsatisfactory is the want of 
mental cultivation, by which men are deprived of the inex- 
haustible pleasures of knowledge, not merely in the shape of 
science, but as practice and fine art. It is not at all difficult 
to indicate sources of happiness ; the main stress of the prob- 
lem lies in the contest with the positive evils of life, the great 
sources of physical and of mental suffering — indigence, disease, 
and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects 
of affection. Poverty and Disease may be contracted in 
dimensions ; and even vicissitudes of fortune are not wholly 
beyond control. 

It is unquestionably possible to do without happiness. 
This is the lot of the greater part of mankind, and is often 
voluntarily chosen by the hero or the martyr. But self- 
sacrifice is not its own end; it must be made to earn for 
others immunity from sacrifice. It must be a very imperfect 
state of the world's arrangements that requires any one to 
serve the happiness of others by the absolute sacrifice of their 
own ; yet undoubtedly while the world is in that imperfect 
state, the readiness to make such a sacrifice is the highest 
virtue that can be found in man. Nay, farther, the conscious 



704 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— JOHN STUAKT MILL. 

ability to do without happiness, in such a condition of the 
world, is the best prospect of realizing such happiness as is 
attainable. Meanwhile, self-devotion belongs as much to the 
Utilitarian as to the Stoic or the Transcendentalist ; with the 
reservation that a sacrifice not tending to increase the sum of 
happiness is to be held as wasted. The golden rule, do as 
you would be done by, is the ideal perfection of utilitarian 
morality. The means of approaching this ideal are, first, 
that laws and society should endeavour to place the interest 
of the individual in harmony with the interest of the whole ; 
and, secondly, that education and opinion should establish 
in the mind of each individual an indissoluble association 
between his own good and the good of the whole. 

The system of Utility is objected to, on another side, as 
being too high for humanity ; men cannot be perpetually 
acting with a view to the general interests of society. But 
this is to mistake the meaning of a standard, and to confound 
the rule of action with the motive. Ethics tells us what are 
our duties, or by what test we are to know them ; but no 
system of ethics requires that the motive of every action 
should be a feeling of duty ; our actions are rightly done pro- 
vided only duty does not condemn them. The great majority 
of actions have nothing to do with the good of the world — 
they end with the individual ; it happens to few persons, and 
that rarely, to be public benefactors. Private utility is in the 
mass of cases all that we have to attend to. As regards 
abstinences, indeed, it would be unworthy of an intelligent 
agent not to be aware that the action is one that, if practised 
generally, would be generally injurious, and to not feel a sense of 
obligation on that ground ; but such an amount of regard for 
the general interest is required under every system of morals. 

It is farther alleged against Utility, that it renders men 
cold and unsympathizing, chills the moral feelings towards 
individuals, and regards only the dry consequences of actions, 
without reference to the moral qualities of the agent. The 
author replies that Utility, like any other system, admits that 
a right action does not necessarily indicate a virtuous charac- 
ter. Still, he contends, in the long run, the best proof of a 
good character is good actions. If the objection means that 
utilitarians do not lay sufficient stress on the beauties of cha- 
racter, he replies that this is the accident of persons cultivating 
their moral feelings more than their sympathies and artistic 
perceptions, and may occur under every view of the foundation 
of morals. 



OBJECTIONS TO UTILITY ANSWERED. 705 

The next objection considered is that Utility is a godless 
doctrine. The answer is, that whoever believes in the perfect 
goodness and wisdom of God, necessarily believes that what- 
ever he has thought fit to reveal on the subject of morals 
must fulfil the requirements of utility in a supreme degree. 

Again, Utility is stigmatized as an immoral doctrine, by 
carrying out Expediency in opposition to Principle. But the 
Expedient in this sense means what is expedient for the agent 
himself, and, instead of being the same thing with the useful, 
is a branch of the hurtful. It would often be expedient to tell 
a lie, but so momentous and so widely extended are the utilities 
of truth, that veracity is a rule of transcendent expediency. 
Yet all moralists admit exceptions to it, solely on account of 
the manifest inexpediency of observing it on certain occasions. 

The author does not omit to notice the usual charge that 
it is impossible to make a calculation of consequences previous 
to every action, which is as much as to say that no one can 
be under the guidance of Christianity, because there is not 
time, on the occasion of doing anything, to read through the 
Old and New Testaments. The real answer is (substantially 
the same as Austin's) that there has been ample time during 
the past duration of the species. Mankind have all that time 
been learning by experience the consequences of actions ; on 
that experience they have founded both their prudence and 
their morality. It is an inference from the principle of utility, 
which regards morals as a practical art, that moral rules are 
improvable ; but there exists under the ultimate principle a 
number of intermediate generalizations, applicable at once to 
the emergencies of human conduct. Nobody argues that 
navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors can- 
not wait to calculate the Nautical Almanack. 

As to the stock argument, that people will pervert utility 
for their private ends, Mr. Mill challenges the production of 
any ethical creed where this may not happen. The fault is 
due, not to the origin of the rules, but to the complicated 
nature of human affairs, and the necessity of allowing a certain 
latitude, under the moral responsibility of the agent, for ac- 
commodation to circumstances. And in cases of conflict, 
utility is a better guide than anything found in systems whose 
moral laws claim independent authority. 

Chapter III. considers the Ultimate Sanction of the 
Principle of Utility. 

It is a proper question with regard to a supposed moral 
standard, — What is its sanction ? what is the source of its 
45 



706 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — JOHN STUART MILL. 

obligation ? wherein lies its binding force ? The customary 
morality is consecrated by education and opinion, and seems 
to be obligatory in itself; but to present, as the source of 
obligation, some general principle, not surrounded by the 
halo of consecration, seems a paradox; the superstructure 
seems to stand better without such a foundation. This diffi- 
culty belongs to every attempt to reduce morality to first 
principles, unless it should happen that the principle chosen 
has as much sacredness as any of its applications. 

Utility has, or might have, all the sanctions attaching to 
any other system of morals. Those sanctions are either 
External or Internal. The External are the hope of favour 
and the fear of displeasure (1) from our fellow- creatures, or 
(2) from the Ruler of the Universe, along with any sympathy 
or affection for them, or love and awe of Him, inclining us 
apart from selfish motives. There is no reason why these 
motives should not attach themselves to utilitarian morality. 

The Internal Sanction, under every standard of duty, is 
of one uniform character — a feeling in our own mind ; a pain, 
more or less intense, attendant on violation of duty, which in 
properly cultivated moral natures rises, in the more serious 
cases, into shrinking from it as an impossibility. This feeling, 
when disinterested, and connecting itself with the pure idea 
of duty, is the essence of Conscience ; a complex phenomenon, 
involving associations from sympathy, from love, and still 
more from fear ; from the recollections of childhood, and of 
all our past life ; from self-esteem, desire of the esteem of 
others, and occasionally even self-abasement. This extreme 
complication is an obstacle to our supposing that it can attach 
to other objects than what are found at present to excite it. 
The binding force, however, is the mass of feeling to he broken 
through in order to violate our standard of right, and which, 
if we do violate that standard, will have to be afterwards 
encountered as remorse. 

Thus, apart from external sanctions, the ultimate sanction, 
under Utility, is the same as for other standards, namely, the 
conscientious feelings of mankind. If there be anything 
innate in conscience, there is nothing more likely than that it 
should be a regard to the pleasures and pains of others. If 
so, the intuitive ethics would be the same as the utilitarian ; 
and it is admitted on all hands that a large portion of morality 
turns upon what is due to the interests of fellow-creatures. 

On the other hand, if, as the author believes, the moral 
feelings are not innate, they are not for that reason less 



NATURAL SENTIMENT IN FAVOUR OF UTILITY. 707 

natural. It is natural to man to speak, to reason, to cultivate 
the ground, to build cities, though these are acquired faculties. 
So the moral faculty, if not a part of our nature, is a natural 
outgrowth of it; capable, in a certain small degree, of 
springing up spontaneously, and of being brought to a high 
pitch by means of cultivation. It is also susceptible, by the 
nse of the external sanctions and the force of early impres- 
sions, of being cultivated in almost any direction, and of being 
perverted to absurdity and mischief. 

The basis of natural sentiment capable of supporting the 
utilitarian morality is to be found in the social feelings of man- 
hind. The social state is so natural, so necessary, and so 
habitual to man, that he can hardly conceive himself otherwise 
than as a member of society ; and as civilization advances, 
this association becomes more firmly riveted. All strength- 
ening of social ties, and all healthy growth of society, give to 
each individual a stronger personal interest in consulting the 
welfare of others. Each comes, as though instinctively, to be 
conscious of himself as a being that of course pays regard to 
others. There is the strongest motive in each person to 
manifest this sentiment, and, even if he should not feel it 
strongly himself, to cherish it in everybody else. The smallest 
germs of the feeling are thus laid hold of, and nourished by 
the contagion of sympathy and the influences of education ; 
and by the powerful agency of the external sanctions there is 
woven around it a complete web of corroborative association. 
In an improving state of society, the influences are on the 
increase that generate in each individual a feeling of unity 
with all the rest ; which, if perfect, would make him never 
think of anything for self, if they also were not included. Sup- 
pose, now, that this feeling of unity were taught as a religion, 
and that the whole force of education, of institutions, and of 
opinion, were directed to make every person grow up sur- 
rounded with the profession and the practice of it ; can there 
be any doubt as to the sufficiency of the ultimate sanction for 
the Happiness morality ? 

Even in our present low state of advancement, the deeply- 
rooted conception that each individual has of himself as a 
social being tends to make him wish to be in harmony with 
his fellow-creatures. The feeling may be, in most persons, 
inferior in strength to the selfish feelings, and may be altogether 
wanting ; but to such as possess it, it has all the characters of 
a natural feeling, and one that they would not desire to be 
without. 



708 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— JOHN STUART MILL. 

GOV ITIAH 

Chapter IV. is Of what sort of proof the principle of 
utility is susceptible. Questions about ends are questions as 
to what things are desirable. According to the theory of 
Utility, happiness is desirable as an end; all other things are 
desirable as means. What is the proof of this doctrine ? 

As the proof, that the sun is visible, is that people actually 
see it, so the proof that happiness is desirable, is that people 
do actually desire it. No reason can be given why the general 
happiness is desirable, beyond the fact that each one desires 
their own happiness. 

But granting that people desire happiness as one of their 
ends of conduct, do they never desire anything else ? To all 
appearance they do ; they desire virtue, and the absence of 
vice, no less surely than pleasure and the absence of pain. 
Hence the opponents of utility consider themselves entitled to 
infer that happiness is not the standard of moral approbation 
and disapprobation. 

\o But the utilitarians do not deny that virtue is a thing to 
be desired. The very reverse. They maintain that it is to be 
desired, and that for itself. Although considering that what 
makes virtue is the tendency to promote happiness, yet they 
hold that the mind is not in a right state, not in a state con- 
formable to Utility, not in the state conducive to the general 
happiness, unless it has adopted this essential instrumentality 
so warmly as to love it for its own sake. It is necessary to 
the carrying out of utility that certain things, originally of 
the nature of means, should come by association to be a part 
of the final end. Thus health is but a means, and yet we 
cherish it as strongly as we do any of the ultimate pleasures 
and pains. So virtue is not originally an end, but it is capable 
of becoming so ; it is to be desired and cherished not solely 
as a means to happiness, but as a part of happiness. 

The notorious instance of money exemplifies this operation. 
The same may be said of power and fame ; although these are 
ends as well as means. We should be but ill provided with 
happiness, were it not for this provision of nature, whereby 
things, originally indifferent, but conducive to the satisfaction 
of our primitive desires, become in themselves sources of 
pleasure, of even greater value than the primitive pleasures, 
both in permanency and in the extent of their occupation of 
our life. Virtue is originally valuable as bringing pleasure 
and avoiding pain ; but by association it may be felt as a good 
in itself, and be desired as intensely as any other good ; with 
this superiority over money, power, or fame, that it makes 
-Ibxxx eite \d ba^edoaib ed mssoda w&l oa $sd$ ini 



HAPPINESS THE ULTIMATE OBJECT OF DESIPvE. 709 

the individual a blessing to society, while these others may 
make him a curse. 

With the allowance thus made for the effect of association, 
the author considers it proved that there is in reality nothing 
desired except happiness. Whatever is desired otherwise than 
as a means to some end beyond itself, and ultimately to hap- 
piness, is not desired for itself till it has become such. Human 
nature is so constituted, he thinks, that we desire nothing but 
what is either a part of happiness or a means of happiness ; 
and no other proof is required that these are the only things 
desirable. Whether this psychological assertion be correct, 
must be determined by the self-consciousness and observation 
of the most practised observers of human nature. 

It may be alleged that, although desire always tends to 
happiness, yet Will, as shown by actual conduct, is different 
from desire. We persist in a course of action long after the 
original desire has faded. But this is merely an instance of 
that familiar fact, the power of habit, and is nowise confined 
to the virtuous actions. Will is amenable to habit ; we may 
will from habit what we no longer desire for itself, or desire 
only because we will it. But the will is the child of desire, 
and passes out of the dominion of its parent only to come 
under the sway of habit. What is the result of habit may 
not be intrinsically good ; we might think it better for virtue 
that habit did not come in, were it not that the other influ- 
ences are not sufficiently to be depended on for unerring 
constancy, until they have acquired this farther support. 

Chapter V. is On the connexion - between Justice and 
Utility. 

The strongest obstacle to the doctrine of Utility has been 
drawn from the Idea of Justice. The rapid perception and 
the powerful sentiment connected with the Just, seem to show 
it as generically distinct from every variety of the Expedient. 

To see whether the sense of justice can be explained on 
grounds of Utility, the author begins by surveying in the 
concrete the things usually denominated just. In the first 
place, it is commonly considered unjust to deprive any one of 
their personal liberty, or property, or anything secured to 
them by law : in other words, it is unjust to violate any one ; s 
legal rights. Secondly, The legal rights of a man may be such 
as ought not to have belonged to him ; that is, the law con- 
ferring those rights may be a bad law. When a law is bad, 
opinions will differ as to the justice or injustice of infringing 
it ; some think that no law should be disobeyed by the indi- 



710 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— JOHN STUART MILL. 

vicinal citizen; others hold that it is jnst to resist nnjust 
laws. It is thns admitted by all that there is such a thing as 
moral right, the refusal of which is injustice. Thirdly, it is 
considered just that each person should receive what he de- 
serves (whether good or evil). And a person is understood 
to deserve good if he does right, evil if he does wrong ; and 
in particular to deserve good in return for good, and evil in 
return for evil. Fourthly, it is nnjust to break faith, to 
violate an engagement, or disappoint expectations knowingly 
and voluntarily raised. Like other obligations, this is not 
absolute, but may be overruled by some still stronger demand 
of justice on the other side. Fifthly, It is inconsistent with 
justice to be partial ; to show favour or preference in matters 
where favour does not apply. We are expected in certain 
cases to prefer our friends to strangers; but a tribunal is 
bound to the strictest impartiality ; rewards and punishments 
should be administered impartially ; so likewise the patronage 
of important public offices. Nearly allied to impartiality is 
the idea of equality. The justice of giving equal protection 
to the rights of all is maintained even when the rights them- 
selves are very unequal, as in slavery and in the system of 
ranks or castes. There are the greatest differences as to what 
is equality in the distribution of the produce of labour ; some 
thinking that all should receive alike ; others that the neediest 
should receive most ; others that the distribution should be 
according to labour or services. 

To get a clue to the common idea running through all 
these meanings, the author refers to the etymology of the 
word, which, in most languages, points to something ordained 
by law. Even although there be many things considered just, 
that we do not usually enforce by law, yet in these cases it 
would give us pleasure if law could be brought to bear upon 
offenders. When we think a person bound in justice to do a 
thing, we should like to see him punished for not doing it ; we 
lament the obstacles tha/fc may be in the way, and strive to 
make amends by a strong expression of our own opinion. The 
idea of legal constraint is thus the generating idea of justice 
throughout all its transformations. 

The real turning point between morality and simple expe- 
diency is contained in the penal sanction. Duty is what we 
may exact of a person ; there may be reasons why we do not 
exact it, but the person himself would not be entitled to com- 
plain if we did so. Expediency, on the other hand, points to 
things that we may wish people to do, may praise them for 




CONNEXION BETWEEN JUSTICE AND UTILITY. 711 

doing, and despise them for not doing, while we do not con- 
sider it proper to bring in the aid of punishment. 

There enters farther into the idea of Justice what has been 
expressed by the ill-chosen phrase, ' perfect obligation,' mean- 
ing that the duty involves a moral right on the part of some 
definite person, as in the case of a debt ; an imperfect obliga- 
tion is exemplified by charity, which gives no legal claim to 
any one recipient. Every such right is a case of Justice, 
and not of Beneficence. 

The Idea of Justice is thus shown to be grounded in Law ; 
and the next question is, does the strong feeling or sentiment 
of Justice grow out of considerations of utility ? Mr. Mill 
conceives that though the notion of expediency or utility does 
not give birth to the sentiment, it gives birth to what is 
moral in it. 

The two essentials of justice are (1) the desire to punish 
some one r and (2) the notion or belief that harm has been 
done to some definite individual or individuals. Now, it 
appears to the author that the desire to punish is a spon- 
taneous outgrowth of two sentiments, both natural, and, it 
may be, instinctive ; the impulse of self-defence, and the feel- 
ing of sympathy. We naturally resent, repel, and retaliate, 
any harm done to ourselves and to any one that engages our 
sympathies. There is nothing moral in mere resentment ; 
the moral part is the subordination of it to our social regards. 
We are moral beings, in proportion as we restrain our private 
resentment whenever it conflicts with the interests of society. 
All moralists agree with Kant in saying that no act is right 
that could not be adopted as a law by all rational beings (that 
is, consistently with the well-being of society). 

There is in Justice a rule of conduct, and a right on the 
part of some one, which right ought to be enforced by society. 
If it is asked why society ought to enforce the right, there is 
no answer but the general utility. If that expression seem 
feeble and inadequate to account for the energy of retalia- 
tion inspired by injustice, the author asks us to advert to 
the extraordinarily important and impressive kind of utility 
that is concerned. The interest involved is security, to every 
one's feelings the most vital of all interests. All other earthly 
benefits needed by one person are not needed by another ; 
and many of them can, if necessary, be cheerfully foregone, or 
replaced by something else ; but security no human being can 
possibly do without ; on it we depend for all our immunity 
from evil, and for the whole value of all and every good, 



712.TK3 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — JOHN STUAKT MILL. 

beyond the passing moment. Now, this most indispensable 
of all necessaries, after physical nutriment, cannot be had 
unless the machinery for providing it is kept unintermittedly in 
active play. Our notion, therefore, of the claim we have on 
our fellow- creatures to join in making safe for us the very 
groundwork of our existence, gathers feelings around it so 
much more intense than those concerned in any of the more 
common cases of utility, that the difference in degree (as is 
often the case in psychology) becomes a real difference in 
kind. The claim assumes that character of absoluteness, that 
apparent infinity, and incommensurability with all other con- 
siderations, which constitute the distinction between the 
feeling of right and wrong, and that of ordinary expediency 
and inexpediency. 

Having presented his own analysis of the sentiment of 
Justice, the author proceeds to examine the intuitive theory. 
The charge is constantly brought against Utility, that it is an 
uncertain standard, differently interpreted by each person. 
The only safety, it is pretended, is found in the immutable, 
ineffaceable, and unmistakeable dictates of Justice, carrying 
their evidence in themselves, and independent of the fluctua- 
tions of opinions. But so far is this from being the fact, that 
there is as much difference of opinion, and as much discussion, 
about what is just, as about what is useful to society. 

To take a few instances. On the question of Punishment, 
some hold it unjust to punish any one by way of example, or 
for any end but the good of the sufferer. Others maintain 
that the good of the society is the only admissible end of 
punishment. Robert Owen affirms that punishment altogether 
is unjust, and that we should deal with crime only through 
education. Now, without an appeal to expediency, it is im- 
possible to arbitrate among these conflicting views ; each one 
has a maxim of justice on its side. Then as to the apportion- 
ing of punishments to offences. The rule that recommends 
itself to the primitive sentiment of justice is an eye for an eye, 
a tooth for a tooth ; a rule formally abandoned in European 
countries, although not without its hold upon the popular 
mind. With many, the test of justice, in penal infliction, is 
that it should be proportioned to the offence; while others 
maintain that it is just to inflict only such an amount of 
punishment as will deter from the commission of the offence. 

Besides the differences of opinion already alluded to, as to 
the payment of labour, how many, and irreconcileable, are the 
standards of justice appealed to on the matter of taxation ? 



DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE JUST AND THE EXPEDIENT. 713 

One opinion is, that taxes should be in proportion to pecuniary 
means ; others think the wealthy should pay a higher propor- 
tion. In point of natural justice, a case might be made out 
for disregarding means, and taking the same sum from each, 
as the privileges are equally bestowed : yet from feelings of 
humanity and social expediency no one advocates that view. 
So that there is no mode of extricating the question but the 
utilitarian. 

To sum up. The great distinction between the Just and 
the Expedient is the distinction between the essentials of 
well-being — the moral rules forbidding mankind to hurt one 
another — and the rules that only point out the best mode of 
managing some department of human affairs. It is in the 
higher moralities of protection from harm that each individual 
has the greatest stake ; and they are the moralities that com- 
pose the obligations of justice. It is on account of these that 
punishment, or retribution of evil for evil, is universally in- 
cluded in the idea. For the carrying out of the process of 
retaliation, certain maxims are necessary as instruments or as 
checks to abuse ; as that involuntary acts are not punishable ; 
that no one shall be condemned unheard ; that punishment 
should be proportioned to the offence. Impartiality, the first 
of judicial virtues, is necessary to the fulfilment of the other 
conditions of justice : while from the highest form of doing 
to each according to their deserts, it is the abstract standard 
of social and distributive justice ; and is in this sense a direct 
emanation from the first principle of morals, the principle of 
the greatest Happiness. All social inequalities that have 
ceased to be considered as expedient, assume the character, 
not of simple inexpediency, but of injustice. 

Besides the ' Utilitarianism, ' Mr. Mill's chief Ethical disser- 
tations are his review of Whewell's Moral Treatises (Disserta- 
tions and Discussions, Vol. II.), and parts of his Essay on 
Liberty. By collecting his views generally under the usual 
heads, we shall find a place for some points additional to what 
are given in the foregoing abstract. 

I. — Enough has been stated as to his Ethical Standard, 
the Principle of Utility. 

II.— We have seen his Psychological explanation of the 
Moral Faculty, as a growth from certain elementary feelings 
of the mind. ; ac 

He has also discussed extensively the Freedom of the 
Will, maintaining the strict causation of human actions, and 
refuting the supposed fatalistic tendency of the doctrine. 



714 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — BAILEY. 

He believes, as we have seen,, in Disinterested impulses, 
but traces them to a purely self-regarding origin. 

III. — He does not give any formal dissertation on Human 
Happiness, but indicates many of its important conditions, as 
in the remarks cited above,, p. 702. In the chapter of the 
work on ' Libert}^' entitled Individuality, he illustrates the 
great importance of special tastes, and urges the full right of 
each person to the indulgence of these in every case where 
they do not directly injure others.. He reclaims against the 
social tyranny prevailing on such points as dress, personal 
habits, and eccentricities. 

IV. — As regards the Moral Code, he would repeal the 
legal and moral rule that makes marriage irrevocable. He 
would also abolish all restraints on freedom of thought, and 
on Individuality of conduct, qualified as above stated. 

He would impose two new moral restraints. He con- 
siders that every parent should be bound to provide a suit- 
able education for his own children. Farther, for any one to 
bring into the world human beings without the means of sup- 
porting them, or,, in an over-peopled country, to produce 
children in such number as to depress the reward of labour 
by competition, he regards as serious offences.. 

SAMUEL BAILEY. 

Mr. Samuel Bailey devotes the last four in his Third Series 
of ' Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind/ to the sub- 
ject of the Moral Sentiments, or the feelings inspired in us 
by human conduct. He first sets down five facts in the 
human constitution, in which moral phenomena originate — 

1. Man is susceptible of pleasure and pain of various kinds 
and degrees.. 

2. He likes and dislikes respectively the causes of them. 

3. He desires to reciprocate pleasure and pain received, 
when intentionally given by other sentient beings. 

4. He himself expects such reciprocation from his fellows, 
coveting it in the one case,, and shunning it in the other. 

5. He feels, under certain circumstances, more or less 
sympathy with the pleasures and pains given to others, ac- 
companied by a proportionate desire that those affections 
should be reciprocated to the givers. 

These rudimentary affections,, states and operations of 
consciousness [he is careful to note that,, besides feelings, 
intellectual conditions and processes are involved in them] 



KUDIMENTARY SUSCEPTIBILITIES OF THE MIND. 715 

are found more or less developed in all, or nearly all the 
human race. In support of the limitation now made, he 
adduces what are given as authentic accounts of savages 
devoid of all gratitude and fellow-feeling ; and then goes on to 
trace the nature and development of moral sentiment from the 
rudimentary powers and susceptibilities mentioned,, in those 
that do possess them. In doing so, he follows the convenient 
mode of speech that takes actions for the objects that excite 
the susceptibilities, although, in reality, the objects are no 
other than human beings acting in particular ways. 

The feelings he supposes to be modified in manner or 
degree, according as actions are (1) done by ourselves to 
others, or (2) done to others by others, or (3) done to others 
by ourselves ; i.e., according as we ourselves are the subjects, 
the spectators, or doers of them. 

First, then, he considers our feelings in regard to actions 
done to us by others, and the more carefully, because these 
lie at the foundation of the rest. When a fellow-creature 
intentionally contributes to our pleasure, we feel the pleasure ; 
we feel a liking to the person intentionally conferring it, and 
we feel an inclination to give him pleasure in return. The 
two last feelings — liking and inclination to reciprocate, con- 
stitute the simplest form of moral approbation ; in the contrary 
case, dislike and resentment give the rudimentary form of moral 
disapprobation. It is enough to excite the feelings, that the 
actions are merely thought to be done by the person. They 
are moral sentiments, even although it could be supposed 
that there were no other kinds of actions in the world except 
actions done to ourselves ; but they are moral sentiments in 
the purely selfish form. That, for moral sentiment, mere 
liking and disliking must be combined with the desire to 
reciprocate good and evil, appears on a comparison of our 
different feelings towards animate and inanimate causes of 
pleasure and pain^ there being towards inanimate objects no 
desire of reciprocation.. To a first objection, that the violent 
sentiments, arising upon actions done to, ourselves, should not 
get the temperate designation of moral approbation and dis- 
approbation, he replies, that such extremes as the passions of 
gratitude and resentment must yet be identified in their origin 
with our cooler feelings, when we are mere spectators or 
actors. A second objection, that the epithet moral is inappli- 
cable to sentiments involving purely personal feeling, and 
destitute of sympathy, he answers, by remarking that the 
word moral, in philosophy, should not eulogistically be op- 



716 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— BAILEY. 

posed to immoral, but should be held as neutral, and to mean 
'relating to conduct, whatever that conduct may be.' He 
closes the first bead with the observation, that in savage life 
the violent desire of reciprocation is best seen ; generally, 
however, as he gives instances to show, in the form of revenge 
and reciprocation of evil. 

In the second place, be considers our feelings when we 
are spectators of actions done to others by others. These 
form the largest class of actions, but to us they have a mean- 
ing, for the most part at least, only as they have an analogy 
to actions done to ourselves. The variety of the resulting 
feelings, generally less intense than when we are the subjects 
of the actions, is illustrated first by supposing the persons 
affected to be those we love; in this case, the feelings are 
analogous to those already mentioned, and they may be even 
more intense than when we ourselves are personally affected. 
If those affected are indifferent to us, our feelings are less 
intense, but we are still led to feel as before, from a natural 
sympathy with other men's pains and pleasures — always sup- 
posing the sympathy is not (as often happens) otherwise 
counteracted or superseded ; and also from the influence of 
association, if that, too, happen not to be countervailed. Of 
sympathy for human beings in general, he remarks that a 
certain measure of civilization seems required to bring it 
properly out, and he cites instances to prove how much it is 
wanting in savages. In a third case, where the persons 
affected are supposed to be those we hate, we are displeased 
when they are made to rejoice, and pleased when they suffer, 
unless we are overcome by our habitual associations with 
good and evil actions. Such associations weigh least with 
rude and savage peoples, but even the most civilized nations 
disregard them in times of war. 

He takes up, in the third place, actions done by ourselves 
to others. Here, when the action is beneficent, the peculi- 
arity is that an expectation of receiving good in return from 
our neighbours takes the place of a desire to reciprocate ; we 
consider ourselves the proper object of grateful thoughts, &c, 
on the part both of receiver and of spectators. We are affected 
with the gratification of a benevolent desire, with self-com- 
placency, and with undefined hopes. When we have inflicted 
injury, there is the expectation of evil, and a combination of 
feelings summed up in the word Remorse. But Remorse, 
like other sentiments, may fail in the absence of cultivation of 
mind or under special circumstances. 



DIFFERENT CLASSES OF ACTIONS. 717 

Having considered the three different kinds of actions 
separately, he next remarks that the sentiment prevailing in 
each case must be liable to a reflex influence from the other 
cases, whereby it will be strengthened or intensified ; thus we 
come to associate certain intensities of moral sentiment with 
certain kinds of action, by whomsoever or to whomsoever 
performed. He also notes, that in the first and third cases, 
as well as in the second, there is a variation of the sentiment, 
according as the parties affected are friends, neutrals, or 
enemies. Finally, a peculiar and important modification of 
the sentiments results from the outward manifestations of 
them called forth from the persons directly or indirectly 
affected by actions. Such are looks, gestures, tones, words, 
or actions, being all efforts to gratify the natural desire of 
reciprocating pleasure or pain. Of these the most notable are 
the verbal manifestations, as they are mostly irrepressible, and 
can alone always be resorted to. While relieving the feelings, 
they can also become a most powerful, as they are often the 
only, instrument of reward and punishment. Their power of 
giving to moral sentiments greater precision, and of acting 
upon conduct like authoritative precepts, is seen in greatest 
force when they proceed from bodies of men, whether they are 
regarded as signs of material consequences or not. He ends 
this part of the subject by defending, with Butler, the place 
of resentment in the moral constitution. 

He proceeds to inquire how it is that not only 
the perfection of moral sentiment that would apportion 
more approbation and disapprobation according to the 
real tendencies of actions, is not attained, but men's 
moral feelings are not seldom in extreme contrariety 
with the real effects of human conduct. First, he finds 
that men, from partial views, or momentarily, or from 
caprice, may bestow their sentiments altogether at variance 
with the real consequences of actions. Next there is the diffi- 
culty, or even impossibility, of calculating all the consequences 
far and near ; whence human conduct is liable to be appreciated 
on whimsical grounds or on no discernible grounds at all, 
and errors in moral sentiment arise, which it takes increased 
knowledge to get rid of. In the third place, it is a fact that 
our moral sentiments are to a very great extent derived from 
tradition, while the approbation and disapprobation may have 
originally been wrongly applied. The force of tradition he 
illustrates by supposing the case of a patriarchal family, and 
he cannot too strongly represent its strength in overcoming 



713 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — BAILEY, 

or at least struggling against natural feeling. The authorita- 
tive precept of a superior may also make actions be approved 
or disapproved, not because they are directly perceived or 
even traditionally held to be beneficial or injurious, but solely 
because they are commanded or prohibited. Lastly, he dwells 
upon the influence of superstition in perverting moral senti- 
ment, finding, however, that it operates most strongly in the 
way of creating false virtues and false vices and crimes. 

These circumstances, explaining the want of conformity in 
our moral sentiments to the real tendencies of actions, he 
next employs to account for discrepancies in moral sentiment 
between different communities. Having given examples of 
such discrepancies, he supposes the case of two families, 
endowed with the rudimentary qualities mentioned at the 
beginning, but placed in different circumstances. Under the 
influence of dissimilar physical conditions, and owing to the 
dissimilar personal idiosyncracies of the families, and espe- 
cially of their chiefs, there will be left few points of complete 
analogy between them in the first generation, and in course 
of time they will become two races exceedingly unlike in 
moral sentiment, as in other respects. He warns strongly 
against making moral generalizations except under analogous 
circumstances of knowledge and civilization. Most men have 
the rudimentary feelings, but there is no end to the variety of 
their intensity and direction. As a highest instance of dis- 
crepant moral sentiment, he cites the fact that, in our own 
country, a moral stigma is still attached to intellectual error 
by many people, and even by men of cultivation. 

He now comes to the important question of the test or 
criterion that is to determine which of these diverse sentiments 
are right and which wrong, since they cannot all be right 
from the mere fact of their existence, or because they are felt 
by the subjects of them to be right, or believed to be in con- 
sonance with the injunctions of superiors, or to be held also 
by other people. The foregoing review of the genesis of 
moral sentiments suggests a direct and simple answer. As 
they arise from likings and dislikings of actions that cause, or 
tend to cause, pleasure and pain, the first thing is to see that 
the likings and dislikings are well founded. Where this does 
not at once appear, examination of the real effects of actions 
must be resorted to ; and, in dubious cases, men in general, 
when unprejudiced, allow this to be the natural test for 
applying moral approbation and disapprobation. If, indeed, 
the end of moral sentiment is to promote or to prevent the 



THE CRITERION OF CONSEQUENCES VINDICATED. 719 

actions, there can be no better way of attaining that end. 
And, as a fact, almost all moralists virtually adopt it on occa- 
sion, though often unconsciously; the greatest happiness- 
principle is denounced by its opponents as a mischievous 
doctrine. 

The objection that the criterion of consequences is difficult 
of application, and thus devoid of practical utility, he rebuts 
by asserting that the difficulty is not greater than in other 
cases. We have simply to follow effects as far as we can ; 
and it is by its ascertainable, not by its unascertainable, con- 
sequences, that we pronounce an action, as we pronounce an 
article of food or a statute, tc be good or bad. The main 
effects of most actions are already very well ascertained, and 
the consequences to human happiness, when unascertainable, 
are of no value. If the test were honestly applied, ethical 
discrepancies would tend gradually to disappear. 

He starts another objection : — The happiness- test is good 
as far as it goes, but we also approve and disapprove of 
actions as they are just or generous, or the contrary, and with 
no reference to happiness or unhappiness. In answering this 
argument, he confines himself to the case of Justice. To be 
morally approved, a just action must in itself be peculiarly 
pleasant or agreeable, irrespective of its other effects, which 
are left out : for on no theory can pleasantness or agreeable- 
ness be dissociated from moral approbation. Now, as Hap- 
piness is but a general appellation for all the agreeable 
affections of our nature, and unable to exist except in the 
shape of some agreeable emotion or combinations of agreeable 
emotions ; the just action that is morally commendable, as 
giving naturally and directly a peculiar kind of pleasure 
independent of any other consequences, only produces one 
species of those pleasant states of mind that are ranged under 
the genus happiness. The test of justice therefore coincides 
with the happiness-test. But he does not mean that we are 
actually affected thus, in doing just actions, nor refuse to 
accept justice as a criterion of actions ; only in the one case 
he maintains that, whatever association may have effected, 
the just act must originally have been approved for the sake 
of its consequences, and, in the other, that justice is a criterion, 
because proved over and over again to be a most beneficial 
principle. 

After remarking that the Moral Sentiments of praise and 
blame may enter into accidental connection with other feelings 
of a distinct character, like pity, wonder, &c, he criticises the 



720 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— BAILEY. 

use of the word Utility in Morals, He avoids the term as 
objectionable, because the useful in common language does 
not mean what is directly productive of happiness, but only 
what is instrumental in its production, and in most cases 
customarily or recurrently instrumental. A blanket is of 
continual utility to a poor wretch through a severe winter, 
but the benevolent act of the donor is not termed useful, 
because it confers the benefit and ceases. Utility is too narrow 
to comprehend all the actions that deserve approbation. We 
want an uncompounded substantive expressing the two attri- 
butes of conferring and conducing to happiness ; as a descrip- 
tive phrase, producing happiness is as succinct as any. The 
term useful is, besides, associated with the notion of what is 
serviceable in the affairs and objects of common life, whence 
the philosophical doctrine that erects utility as its banner is 
apt to be deemed, by the unthinking, low, mean, and deroga- 
tory to human nature and aspirations, although its real 
import is wholly free from such a reproach. Notwithstanding, 
therefore, the convenience of the term, and because the asso- 
ciations connected with it are not easily eradicated, whilst most 
of the trite objections to the true doctrine of morals turn upon 
its narrow meanings, he thinks it should be as much as pos- 
sible disused. 

Mr. Bailey ends by remarking of the common question, 
whether our moral sentiments have their origin in Reason, or 
in a separate power called the Moral Sense, that in his view 
of man's sensitive and intellectual nature it is easily settled. 
He recognizes the feelings that have been enumerated, and, in 
connexion with them, intellectual processes of discerning and 
inferring ; for which, if the Moral Sense and Reason are meant 
as anything more than unnecessary general expressions, they 
are merely fictitious entities. So, too, Conscience, whether 
as identified with the moral sense, or put for sensibility in 
regard to the moral qualities of one's own mind, is a mere 
personification of certain mental states. The summary of 
Bailey's doctrine falls within the two first heads. 

I. — The Standard is the production of Happiness. [It 
should be remarked, however, that happiness is a wider aim 
than morality ; although all virtue tends to produce happiness, 
very much that produces happiness is not virtue.] 

II. — The Moral Faculty, while involving processes of dis- 
cernment and inference, is mainly composed of certain senti- 
ments, the chief being Reciprocity and Sympathy. [These are 
undoubtedly the largest ingredients in a mature, self-acting 



HAPPINESS NOT THE PROXIMATE END. 721 

conscience ; and the way that they contribute to the pro- 
duction of moral sentiment deserved to be, as it has been, well 
handled. The great omission in Mr. Bailey's account is the 
absence of the element of authority, which is the main instru- 
ment in imparting to us the sense of obligation.] 

HERBERT SPENCER. 

Mr. Spencer's ethical doctrines are, as yet, nowhere fully 
expressed. They form part of the more general doctrine of 
Evolution which he is engaged in working out ; and they are 
at present to be gathered only from scattered passages. It is 
true that, in his first work, Social Statics, he presented what 
he then regarded as a tolerably complete view of one division 
of Morals. But without abandoning this view, he now regards 
it as inadequate — more especially in respect of its basis. 

Mr. Spencer's conception of Morality as a science, is con- 
veyed in the following passages in a letter written by him to 
Mr. Mill; repudiating the title anti-utilitarian, which Mr. 
Mill had applied to him : — 

4 The note in question greatly startled me by implicitly 
classing me with Anti-utilitarians. I have never regarded 
myself as an Anti- utilitarian. My dissent from the doctrine 
of Utility as commonly understood, concerns not the object 
to be reached by men, but the method of reaching it. While 
I admit that happiness is the ultimate end to be contem- 
plated, I do not admit that it should be the proximate end. 
The Expediency- Philosophy having concluded that happiness 
is a thing to be achieved, assumes that Morality has no other 
business than empirically to generalize the results of conduct, 
and to supply for the guidance of conduct nothing more than 
its empirical generalizations. 

' But the view for which I contend is, that Morality pro- 
perly so called — the science of right conduct — has for its 
object to determine how and why certain modes of conduct 
are detrimental, and certain other modes beneficial. These 
good and bad results cannot be accidental, but must be neces- 
sary consequences of the constitution of things ; and I con- 
ceive it to be the business of Moral Science to deduce, from 
the laws of life and the conditions of existence, what kinds of 
action necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what kinds 
to produce unhappiness. Having done this, its deductions 
are to be recognized as laws of conduct ; and are to be con- 
formed to irrespective of a direct estimation of happiness or 
misery. 

46 



722 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — SPENCER. 

\ Perhaps an analogy will most clearly show my meaning. 
During its early stages, planetary Astronomy consisted of 
nothing more than accumulated observations respecting the 
positions and motions of the sun and planets ; from which 
accumulated observations it came by and by to be empirically 
predicted, with an approach to truth, that certain of the 
heavenly bodies would have certain positions at certain times. 
But the modern science of planetary Astronomy consists of 
deductions from the law of gravitation — deductions showing 
why the celestial bodies necessarily occupy certain places 
at certain times. Now, the kind of relation which thus exists 
between ancient and modern Astronomy, is analogous to the 
kind of relation which, I conceive, exists between the Expedi- 
ency-Morality, and Moral Science properly so-called. And the 
objection which I have "to the current Utilitarianism, is, that it 
recognizes no more developed form of morality — does not see 
that it has reached but the initial stage of Moral Science. 

' f To make my position fully understood, it seems needful 
to add that, corresponding to the fundamental propositions of 
a developed Moral Science, there have been, and still are, 
developing in the race, certain fundamental moral intuitions ; 
and that, though these moral intuitions are the results of 
accumulated experiences of Utility, gradually organized and 
inherited, they have come to be quite independent of con- 
scious experience. Just in the same way that I believe 
the intuition of space, possessed by any living individual, to 
have arisen from organized and consolidated experiences of all 
antecedent individuals who bequeathed to him their slowly- 
developed nervous organizations — just as I believe that this 
intuition, requiring only to be made definite and complete by 
personal experiences, has practically become a form of thought, 
apparently quite independent of experience ; so do I believe 
that the experiences of utility organized and consolidated 
through all past generations of the human race, have been 
producing corresponding nervous modifications, which, by 
continued transmission and accumulation, have become in 
us certain faculties of moral intuition — certain emotions re- 
sponding to right and wrong conduct, which have no ap- 
parent basis in the individual experiences of utility. I also 
hold that just as the space-intuition responds to the exact 
demonstrations of Geometry, and has its rough conclusions 
interpreted and verified by them; so will moral intuitions 
respond to the demonstrations of Moral Science, and will have 
their rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them.' 



MORAL INTUITIONS ATTAINED BY DEVELOPMENT. 723 

The relations between the Expediency-Morality, and Moral 
Science, conceived by Mr. Spencer to be, the one transitional, 
and the other ultimate, are further explained in the following 
passage from his essay on i Prison-Ethics ' : — 

• Progressing civilization, which is of necessity a succession 
of compromises between old and new, requires a perpetual 
re-adjustment of the compromise between the ideal and the 
practicable in social arrangements : to which end both ele- 
ments of the compromise must be kept in view. If it is true 
that pure rectitude prescribes a system of things far too good 
for men as they are ; it is not less true that mere expediency 
does not of itself tend to establish a system of things any 
better than that which exists. While absolute morality owes 
to expediency the checks which prevent it from rushing into 
Utopian absurdities ; expediency is indebted to absolute 
morality for all stimulus to improvement. Granted that we 
are chiefly interested in ascertaining what is relatively right ; 
it still follows that we must first consider what is absolutely 
riglit ; since the one conception presupposes the other. That 
is to say, though we must ever aim to do what is best for the 
present times, yet we must ever bear in mind what is ab- 
stractedly best ; so that the changes we make may be towards 
it, and not aivay from it.' 

By the word absolute as thus applied, Mr. Spencer does 
not mean to imply a right and wrong existing apart from 
Humanity and its relations. Agreeing with Utilitarians in 
the belief that happiness is the end, and that the conduct 
called moral is simply the best means of attaining it, he of 
course does not assert that there is a morality which is absolute 
in the sense of being true out of relation to human existence. 
By absolute morality as distinguished from relative, he here 
means the mode of conduct which, under the conditions arising 
from social union, must be pursued to achieve the greatest 
welfare of each and all. He holds, that the laws of Life, 
physiologically considered, being fixed, it necessarily follows 
that when a number of individuals have to live in social 
union, which necessarily involves fixity of conditions in the 
shape of mutual interferences and limitations, there result 
certain fixed principles by which conduct must be restricted, 
before the greatest sum of happiness can be achieved. These 
principles constitute what Mr. Spencer distinguishes as abso- 
lute Morality; and the absolutely moral man is the man 
who conforms to these principles, not by external coercion 
nor self- coercion, but who acts them out spontaneously. 






724 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— SPENCER. 

To be fully understood, this conception must be taken along 
with the general theory of Evolution. Mr. Spencer argues 
that all things whatever are inevitably tending towards equi- 
librium; and that consequently the progress of mankind 
cannot cease until there is equilibrium between the human 
constitution and the conditions of hnman existence. Or, as 
i he argues in First Principles (Second Edition, p. 512), 
' The adaptation of man's nature to the conditions of his 
existence cannot cease until the internal forces which we 
know as feelings are in equilibrium with the external forces 
they encounter. And the establishment of this equilibrium, is 
the arrival at a state of human nature and social organization, 
such that the individual has no desires but those which may 
be satisfied without exceeding his proper sphere of action, 
while society maintains no restraints but those which the 
individual voluntarily respects. The progressive extension of 
the liberty of citizens, and the reciprocal removal of political 
restrictions, are the steps by which we advance towards this 
state. And the ultimate abolition of all limits to the freedom 
of each, save those imposed by the like freedom of all, must 
result from the complete equilibration between man's desires 
and the conduct necessitated by surrounding conditions. 7 

The conduct proper to such a state, which Mr, Spencer 
thus conceives to be the subject-matter of Moral Science, 
truly so-called, he proposes, in the Prospectus to his 
System of Philosophy, to treat under the following heads. 

Personal Morals. — The principles of private conduct — 
physical, intellectual, moral, and religious — that follow from the 
conditions to complete individual life ; or, what is the same 
thing, those modes of private action which must result from the 
eventual equilibration of internal desires and external needs. 

Justice. — The mutual limitation of men's actions neces- 
sitated by their co- existence as nnits of a society — limitations, 
the perfect observance of which constitutes that state of 
equilibrium forming the goal of political progress. 

Negative Beneficence. — Those secondary limitations, 
similarly necessitated, which, though less important and 
not cognizable by law, are yet requisite to prevent mutual 
destruction of happiness in various indirect ways : in other 
words— those minor self-restraints dictated by what may be 
called passive sympathy. 

Positive Beneficence. — Comprehending all modes of con- 
duct, dictated by active sympathy, which imply pleasure in 
giving pleasure— modes of conduct that social adaptation 






CONTINENTAL MORALISTS. 725 

has induced and must render ever more general ; and which, 
in becoming universal, must fill to the full the possible mea- 
sure of human happiness. 

This completes the long succession of British moralists 
during the three last centuries. It has been possible, and 
even necessary, to present them thus in an unbroken line, 
because the insular movement in ethical philosophy has been 
hardly, if at all, affected by anything done abroad. In the 
earlier part of the modern period, little of any kind was done 
in ethics by the great continental thinkers. Descartes has 
only a few allusions to the subject; the 'Ethica' of Spinoza 
is chiefly a work of speculative philosophy ; Leibnitz has no 
systematic treatment of moral questions. The case is very 
different in the new German philosophy since the time of 
Kant; besides Kant himself, Fichte, Hegel, Schleiermacher, 
and many later and contemporary thinkers having devoted a 
large amount of attention to practical philosophy. But unless 
it be Kant — and he not to any great extent — none of these has 
influenced the later attempts at ethical speculation amongst 
ourselves : nor, again with the exception of Kant, are we as 
yet in a position properly to deal with them. One reason for 
proceeding to expound the ethical system of the founder of 
the later German philosophy, without regard to his successors, 
lies in the fact that he stood, on the practical side, in as 
definite a relation to the English moralists of last century, as, 
in his speculative philosophy, to Locke and Hume. 

IMMANTJEL KANT. [1724-1804.] 

The ethical writings of Kant, in the order of their appear- 
ance, are — Foundation for the Metaphysic of Morals (1785); 
Critique of the Practical Reason (1788) ; Metajohysic of Morals 
(1797, in two parts — (1) Doctrine of Right or Jurisprudence, 
(2) Doctrine of Virtue or Ethics proper). The third work 
contains the details of his system ; the general theory is pre- 
sented in the two others. Of these we select for analysis the 
earlier, containing, as it does, in less artificial form, an ampler 
discussion of the fundamental questions of morals ; but 
towards the end it must be supplemented, in regard to certain 
characteristic doctrines, from the second, in some respects 
more developed, work.* 

* For help in understanding Kant's peculiar phraseology and general 
point of view, the reader is referred to the short exposition of his Specu- 
lative Philosophy in Appendix B. 




726 ETHIC AX SYSTEMS— KANT. 

In the introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals, Kant 
distinguishes between the empirical and the rational mode 
of treating Ethics. He announces his intention to depart 
from the common plan of mixing up the two together, and to 
attempt for once to set forth the pure moral philosophy that 
is implied even in the vulgar ideas of duty and moral law. 
Because a moral law means an absolute necessity laid on all 
rational beings whatever, its foundation is to be sought, not 
in human nature or circumstances, but a priori in the con- 
ception of pure reason. The most universal precept founded 
on mere experience is only a practical rule, and never a moral 
law. A purely rational moral philosophy, or Metaphysic of 
Morals, will serve the double end of meeting a speculative 
requirement, and of furnishing the only true norm of practice. 
It investigates the idea and principles of a potentially pure 
Will, instead of the acts and conditions of human volition as 
known from psychology. Not a complete Metaphysic of 
Morals, however, (which would be a Critique of the pure 
Practical Reason), but merely a foundation for such will be 
given. The supreme principle of morality is to be established, 
apart from detailed application. First, common notions will 
be analyzed in order to get at this highest principle ; and 
then, when the principle has been sought out, they will be 
returned upon by way of synthesis. 

In the first of the three main sections of the work, he 
makes the passage from Common Rational Knowledge of 
Morals to Philosophical. Nothing in the world, he begins, 
can without qualification be called good, except Will. Qua- 
lities of temperament, like courage, &c, gifts of fortune, like 
wealth and power, are good only with reference to a good 
will. As to a good will, when it is really such, the circum- 
stance that it can, or cannot, be executed does not matter ; its 
value is independent of the utility or fruitlessness of it. 

This idea of the absolute worth of mere Will, though it is 
allowed even by the vulgar understanding, he seeks to estab- 
lish beyond dispute, by an argument from the natural subjec- 
tion of Will to Reason. In a being well- organized, if Con- 
servation or Happiness were the grand aim, such subjection 
would be a great mistake. When Instinct could do the work 
far better and more surely, Reason should have been deprived 
of all practical function. Discontent, in fact, rather than 
happiness comes of pursuit of mere enjoyment by rational 
calculation; and to make light of the part contributed by 
Reason to happiness, is really to make out that it exists for a 



NOTHING GOOD EXCEPT WILL. 727 

nobler purpose. But now, since Reason is a practical faculty 
and governs the will, its function can only be to produce a Will 
good in itself. Such a Will, if not the only good, is certainly 
the highest; and happiness, unattainable by Reason as a 
primary aim, and subject in this life altogether to much limi- 
tation, is to be sought only in the contentment that arises 
from the attainment by Reason of its true aim, at the sacrifice 
often of many a natural inclination. 

He proceeds to develop this conception of a Will in itself 
good and estimable, by dealing with the commonly received 
ideas of Duty. Leaving aside profitable actions that are plain 
violations of duty, and also actions conformed to duty, but, 
while not prompted directly by nature, done from some 
special inclination — in which case it is easy to distinguish 
whether the action is done from duty or from self-interest ; 
he considers those more difficult cases where the same action 
is at once duty, and prompted by direct natural inclination. 
In all such, whether it be duty of self-preservation, of bene- 
volence, of securing one's own happiness (this last a duty, 
because discontent and the pressure of care may easily lead 
to the transgression of other duties), he lays it down that 
the action is not allowed to have true moral value, unless 
done in the abeyance or absence of the natural inclination 
prompting to it. A second position is, that the moral value 
of an action done from duty lies not in the intention of it, but 
in the maxim that determines it ; not in the object, but in the 
principle of Volition. That is to say, in action done out of 
regard to duty, the will must be determined by its formal a 
priori principle, not being determined by any material & 
posteriori motive. A third position follows then from the 
other two ; Duty is the necessity of an action out of respect 
for Law. Towards an object there may be inclination, and 
this inclination may be matter for approval or liking ; but it 
is Law only — the ground and not the effect of Volition, 
bearing down inclination rather than serving it — that can 
inspire Respect When inclination and motives are both 
excluded, nothing remains to determine Will, except Law 
objectively ; and, subjectively, pure respect for a law of prac- 
tice — i.e., the maxim to follow such a law, even at the sacrifice 
of every inclination. The conception of Law-in-itself alone 
determining the will, is, then, the surpassing good that is 
called moral, which exists already in a man before his action 
has any result. Conformity to Law in general, all special 
motive to follow any single law being excluded, remains as 



728 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— KANT. 

the one principle of Volition : I am never to act otherwise, 
than so as to be able also to wish that my maxim (i.e., my 
subjective principle of volition) should become a universal 
law. This is what he finds implied in the common notions of 
Duty. 

Having illustrated at length this reading, in regard to the 
duty of keeping a promise, he contrasts, at the close of the 
section, the all but infallibility of common human reason in 
practice with its helplessness in speculation. Notwithstanding, 
it finds itself unable to settle the contending claims of Reason 
and Inclination, and so is driven to devise a practical philo- 
sophy, owing to the rise of a ' Natural Dialectic ! or tendency 
to refine upon the strict laws of duty in order to make them 
more pleasant. But, as in the speculative region, the Dialectic 
cannot be properly got rid of without a complete Critique of 
Reason. 

In Section II. the passage is made from the popular moral 
philosophy thus arising to the metaphysic of morals. He denies 
that the notion of duty that has been taken above from common 
sage is empirical. It is proved not to be such from the very as- 
sertions of philosophers that men always act from more or less 
refined self-love ; assertions that are founded upon the diffi- 
culty of proving that acts most apparently conformed to duty 
are really such. The fact is, no act can be proved by expe- 
rience to be absolutely moral, i.e., done solely from regard to 
duty, to the exclusion of all inclination; and therefore to 
concede that morality and duty are ideas to be had from 
experience, is the surest way to get rid of them altogether. 
Duty, and respect for its law, are not to be preserved at all, 
unless Reason is allowed to lay absolute injunctions on the 
will, whatever experience says of their non- execution. How, 
indeed, is experience to disclose a moral law, that, in applying 
to all rational beings as well as men, and to men only as 
rational, must originate d priori in pure (practical) Reason ? 
Instead of yielding the principles of morality, empirical exam- 
ples of moral conduct have rather to be judged by these. 

All supreme principles of morality, that are genuine, must 
rest on pure Reason solely ; and the mistake of the popular 
practical philosophies in vogue, one and all — whether advanc- 
ing as their principle a special determination of human nature, 
or Perfection, or Happiness, or Moral Feeling, or Fear of God, 
or a little of this and a little of that — is that there has been 
no previous consideration whether the principles of morality 
are to be sought for in our empirical knowledge of human 



M0EAL1TY KESTS OJST PUKE SEASON. 729 

nature at all. Such consideration would have shown them to 
be altogether a priori, and would have appeared as a pure 
practical philosophy or metaphysic of morals (upon the com- 
pletion of which any popularizing might have waited), kept 
free from admixture of Anthropology, Theology, Physics, 
Hyperphysics, &c, and setting forth the conception of Duty 
as purely rational, without the confusion of empirical motives. 
To a metaphysic of this kind, Kant is now to ascend from the 
popular philosophy, with its stock-in-trade of single instances, 
following out the practical faculty of Reason from the general 
rules determining it, to the point where the conception of 
Duty emerges. 

While things in nature work according to laws, rational 
beings alone can act according to a -conceived idea of laws, 
i.e., to principles. This is to have a Will, or, what is the 
same, Practical Reason, reason being required in deducing 
actions from laws. If the Will follows Reason exactly and 
without fail, actions objectively necessary are necessary also 
subjectively; if, through subjective conditions (inclinations, 
&c), the Will does not follow Reason inevitably, objectively 
necessary actions become subjectively contingent, and towards 
the objective laws the attitude of the will is no longer unfailing 
choice, but constraint. A constraining objective principle 
mentally represented, is a command-, its formula is called 
Imperative, for which the expression is Ought. A will perfectly 
good — i.e., subjectively determined to follow the objective 
laws of good as soon as conceived — knows no Ought. Impera- 
tives are only for a.n imperfect, such as is the human, will. 
Hypothetical Imperatives represent the practical necessity of 
an action as a means to an end, being problematical or assertory 
principles, according as the end is possible or real. Categorical 
Imperatives represent an action as objectively necessary for 
itself, and count as apodeictical principles. 

To the endless number of possible aims of human action 
correspond as many Imperatives, directing merely how they 
are to be attained, without any question of their value ; these 
are Imperatives of Fitness. To one real aim, existing neces- 
sarily for all rational beings, viz., Happiness, corresponds the 
Imperative of Prudence (in the narrow sense), being assertory 
while hypothetical. The categorical Imperative, enjoining a 
mode of action for itself, and concerned about the form and 
principle of it, not its nature and result, is the Imperative of 
Morality. These various kinds of Imperatives, as influencing 
the will, may be distinguished as Rules (of fitness), Counsels 



730 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — KAOT. 

(of prudence), Commands or Laws (of morality) ; also as 
technical, pragmatical, moral. 

STow, as to the question of the possibility of these different 
Imperatives — how they can be supposed able to influence or 
act upon the Will — there is in the first case no difficulty ; in 
wishing an end it is necessarily implied that we wish the 
indispensable means, when this is in our power. In like 
manner, the Imperatives of Prudence are also analytical in 
character (ix., given by implication), if only it were possible to 
have a definite idea of the end sought, viz., happiness. But,, in 
fact, with the elements of happiness to be got from experience 
at the same time that the idea requires an absolute whole, or 
maximum, of satisfaction now and at every future moment, no 
finite being can know precisely what he wants, or what may 
be the effect of any of his wishes. Action, on fixed principles, 
with a view to happiness, is, therefore, not possible ; and one 
can only follow empirical directions, about Diet, Frugality, 
Politeness, &c, seen on the whole to promote it. Although, 
however, there is no certainty of causing happiness, and the 
Imperatives with reference thereto are mere counsels, they 
retain their character of analytical propositions, and their 
action on the will is not less possible than in the former case. 

To prove the possibility of the Imperative of morality is 
more difficult. As categorical, it presupposes nothing else to 
rest its necessity upon ; while by way of experience, it can 
never be made out to be more than a prudential precept — i.e., 
a pragmatic or hypothetic principle. Its possibility must 
therefore be established a priori. But the difficulty will then 
appear no matter of wonder, when it is remembered (from the 
Critique of Pure Reason) how hard it is to establish synthetic 
propositions a priori. 

The question of the possibility, however, meanwhile post- 
poned, the mere conception of a categorical Imperative is 
found to yield the one formula that can express it, from its 
not being dependent, like a hypothetical Imperative, on any 
external condition. Besides the Law (or objective principle 
of conduct), the only thing implied in the Imperative being 
the necessity laid upon the Maxim (or subjective principle) 
to conform to the law — a law limited by no condition; 
there is nothing for the maxim to be conformed to but 
the universality of a law in general, and it is the conformity 
alone that properly constitutes the Imperative necessary. 
The Imperative is thus single, and runs : Act according to that 
maxim only which you can wish at the same time to become a 



FORMULA OF THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE. 731 

universal law. Or, since universality of law as determining 
effects is what we understand by nature : Act as if the maxim 
of your action ought by your will to become the universal law of 
nature. 

Taking cases of duties according to the common divisions 
of duties to ourselves and to others, perfect and imperfect, he 
proceeds to show that they may be all deduced from the single 
Imperative ; the question of the reality of duty, which is the 
same as the establishment of the possibility of the Imperative 
as a synthetic practical proposition a priori, at present alto- 
gether apart. Suppose a man tempted to commit suicide, 
with the view of bettering his evil condition ; but it is contra- 
dictory that the very principle of self-conservation should 
lead to self-destruction, and such a maxim of conduct cannot 
therefore become a universal law of nature. Next, the case cf 
a man borrowing without meaning to repay, has only to be 
turned into a universal law, and the thing becomes impossible ; 
nobody would lend. Again, to neglect a talent that is generally 
useful for mere ease and self- gratification, can indeed be sup- 
posed a universal practice, but can never be wished to be. 
Finally, to refuse help to others universally might not ruin 
the race, but can be wished by no one that knows how soon 
he must himself need assistance. Now, the rule was, that a 
maxim of conduct should be wished to become the universal 
law. In the last two cases, it cannot be wished; in the 
others, the maxim cannot even be conceived in universal 
form. Thus, two grades of duty, one admitting of merit, the 
other so strict as to be irremissible, are established on the 
general principle. The principle is moreover confirmed in the 
case of transgression of duty : the transgressor by no means 
wishes to have his act turned into a general rule, but only 
seeks special and temporary exemption from a law allowed 
by himself to be universal. 

Notwithstanding this force and ease of application, a cate- 
gorical Imperative has not yet been proved a priori actually 
existent; and it was allowed that it could not be proved 
empirically, elements of inclination, interest, &c, being incon- 
sistent with morality. The real question is this : Is it a neces- 
sary law that all rational beings should act on maxims that 
they can wish to become universal laws ? If so, this must be 
bound up with the very notion of the will of a rational being ; 
the relation of the will to itself being to be determined a 
priori by pure Reason. The Will is considered as a power of 
self-determination to act according to certain laws as repre- 



732 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— KANT 

sented to the mind, existing only in rational beings. And, if 
the objective ground of self-determination, or End, is supplied 
by mere Reason, it must be the same for all rational beings. 
Ends may be divided into Subjective, resting upon individual 
Impulses or subjective grounds of desire ; and Objective, de- 
pending on Motives or objective grounds of Volition valid for 
all rational beings. The principles of action are, in the one 
case, Material, and, in the other, Formal, i.e., abstracted from 
all subjective ends. Material ends, as relative, beget only 
hypothetical Imperatives. But, supposed some thing, the 
presence of which in itself has an absolute value, and which, 
as End-in-self, can be a ground of fixed laws; there, and there 
only, can be the ground of a possible categorical Imperative, 
or Law of Practice. 

Now, such an End-in-self (not a thing with merely con- 
ditional value, — a means to be used arbitrarily) is Man 
and every rational being, as Person. There is no other objec- 
tive end with absolute value that can supply to the Reason 
the supreme practical principle requisite for turning subjective 
principles of action into objective principles of volition. Ra- 
tional Nature as End-in-self is a subjective principle to a man 
having this conception of his own being, but becomes objec- 
tive when every rational being has the same from the same 
ground in Reason. Hence a new form (the second) to the 
practical Imperative: Act so as to use Humanity (Human 
Nature) as ivell in your own person, as in the person of another, 
ever as end also, and never merely as means. 

To this new formula, the old examples are easily squared. 
Suicide is using one's person as a mere means to a tolerable 
existence ; breaking faith to others is using them as means, 
not as ends-in-self ; neglect of self-cultivation is the not 
furthering human nature as end-in-self in one's own person ; 
withholding help is refusing to further Humanity as end- in-self 
through the medium of the aims of others. [In a note he 
denies that ' the trivial, Do to others as you would/ &c, is a 
full expression of the law of duty- it contains the ground, 
neither of duties to self; nor of duties of benevolence to others, 
for many would forego receiving good on conditions of not 
conferring it ; nor of the duty of retribution, for the male- 
factor -could turn it against his jndge, &c] 

The universality of this principle of Human and Rational 
Nature as End-in- self, as also its character of objective end 
limiting merely subjective ends, prove that its source is in pure 
Reason. Objectively, the ground of all practical legislation is 



THE WILL IS AUTONOMOUS. 733 

Rule and the Form of Universality that enables rule to be 
Law (of Nature), according to principle first (in its double 
form) ; subjectively, it is End, the subject of all ends being 
every rational being as End-in- self, according to principle 
second. Hence follows the third practical principle of the 
Will, as supreme condition of its agreement with universal 
practical Reason — the idea of the Will of every rational being as 
a Will that legislates universally. The Will, if subject to law, 
has first itself imposed it. 

This new idea — of the Will of every rational being as univer- 
sally legislative — is what, in the implication of the Categorical 
Imperative, specifically marks it off from any Hypothe- 
tical : Interest is seen to be quite incompatible with Duty, if 
Duty is Volition of this kind. A will merely subject to laws 
can be bound to them by interest ; not so a will itself legis- 
lating supremely, for that would imply another law to keep 
the interest of self-love from trenching upon the validity of 
the universal law. Illustration is not needed to prove that a 
Categorical Imperative, or law for the will of every rational 
being, if it exist at all, cannot exclude Interest and be uncon- 
ditional, except as enjoining everything to be done from the 
maxim of a will that in legislating universally can have itself 
for object. This is the point that has been always missed, 
that the laws of duty shall be at once self-imposed and yet 
universal. Subjection to a law not springing from one's own 
will implies interest or constraint, and constitutes a certain 
necessity of action, but never makes Duty. Be the interest 
one's own or another's, the Imperative is conditional only. 
Kant's principle is the Autonomy of the Will; every other 
its Heteronomy. 

The new point of view opens up the very fruitful concep- 
tion of an Empire or Realm of Ends. As a Realm is the sys- 
tematic union of rational beings by means of common laws, so 
the ends determined by the laws may, abstractly viewed, be 
taken to form a systematic whole. Rational beings, as subject 
to a law requiring them to treat themselves and others as 
ends and never merely as means, enter into a systematic union 
by means of common objective laws, i.e. into an (ideal) Em- 
pire or Realm of Ends, from the laws being concerned about 
the mutual relations of rational beings as Ends and Means. 
In this Realm, a rational being is either Head or Member : 
Head, if legislating universally and with complete indepen- 
dence ; Member, if also universally, but at the same time sub- 
ject to the laws. When now the maxim of the will does not 



734 



ETHICAL SYSTEMS—KANT. 



by nature accord necessarily with the demand of the objective 
principle — that the will through its maxim be able to regard 
itself at the same time as legislating universally — a practical 
constraint is exerted by the principle, which is Duty, lying on 
every Member in the Realm of Ends (not on the Head) alike. 
This necessity of practice reposes, not on feeling, impulse, or 
inclination, but on the relation between rational beings arising 
from the fact that each, as End-in- self, legislates universally. 
The Reason gives a universal application to every maxim of 
the "Will ; not from any motive of interest, but from the idea 
of the Dignity of a rational being that follows no law that it 
does not itself at the same time give. 

Everything in the Realm of Ends has either a Price or a 
Dignity. Skill, Diligence, &c, bearing on human likings and 
needs, have a Market-price; Qualities like Wit, Fancy, &c, 
appealing to Taste or Emotional Satisfaction, have an Affection- 
price. But Morality, the only way of being End-in- self, and 
legislating member in the Realm of Ends, has an intrinsic 
Worth or Dignity, calculable in nothing else. Its worth is not 
in results, but in dispositions of Will ; its actions need neither 
recommendation from a subjective disposition or taste, nor 
prompting from immediate tendency or feeling. Being laid 
on the Will by Reason, they make the Will, in the execution, 
the object of an immediate 'Respect, testifying to a Dignity 
beyond all price. The grounds of these lofty claims in moral 
goodness and virtue are the participation by a rational being 
in the universal legislation, fitness to be a member in a possible 
Realm of Ends, subjection only to self-imposed laws. Nothing 
having value but as the law confers it, an unconditional, in- 
comparable worth attaches to the giving of the law, and Respect 
is the only word that expresses a rational being's appreciation 
of that. Autonomy is thus the foundation of the dignity of 
human and of all rational nature. 

The three different expressions that have been given to 
the one general principle of morality imply each the others, 
and differ merely in their mode of presenting one idea of 
the Reason to the mind. Universal application of the Maxim 
of Conduct, as if it were a law of nature, is the formula 
of the Will as absolutely good ; universal prohibition against 
the use of rational beings ever as means only, has reference 
to the fact that a good will in a rational being is an 
altogether independent and ultimate End, an End-in-self in 
all ; universal legislation of each for all recognizes the preroga- 
tive or special dignity of rational beings, that they necessarily 



THEOKIES FOUNDED ON THE HETERONOMY OF THE WILL. 735 

take their maxims from the point of view of all, and must 
regard themselves, being Ends-in-self, as members in a Realm 
of Ends (analogous to the Realm or Kingdom of Nature), 
which, though merely an ideal and possible conception, none 
the less really imposes an imperative upon action. Morality, 
he concludes, is the relation of actions to the Autonomy of the 
Will, i.e., to possible universal legislation through its maxims. 
Actions that can co- exist with this autonomy are allowed ; all 
others are not. A will, whose maxims necessarily accord with 
the laws of Autonomy, is holy, or absolutely good ; the de- 
pendence of a will not thus absolutely good is Obligation. The 
objective necessity of an action from obligation is Duty. Sub- 
jection to laiv is not the only element in duty ; the fact of the 
law being self-imposed gives Dignity. 

The Autonomy of the will is its being a law to itself, with- 
out respect to the objects of volition ; the principle of autonomy 
is to choose only in such a way as that the maxims of choice 
are conceived at the same time as a universal law. This rule 
cannot be proved analytically to be an Imperative, absolutely 
binding on every will ; as a synthetic proposition it requires, 
besides a knowledge of the objects, a critique of the subject, 
i.e., pure practical Reason, before, in its apodeictic character, 
it can be proved completely a priori. Still the mere analysis 
of moral conceptions has sufficed to prove it the sole principle 
of morals, because this principle is seen to be a categorical 
Imperative, and a categorical Imperative enjoins neither more 
nor less than this Autonomy. If, then, Autonomy of Will 
is the supreme principle, Heteronomy is the source of all 
ungenuine principles, of Morality. Heteronomy is whenever 
the Will does not give itself laws, but some object, in relation 
to the Will, gives them. There is then never more than a 
hypothetical Imperative : I am to do something because I 
wish something else. 

There follows a division and criticism of the various 
possible principles of morality that can be set up on the 
assumption of Heteronomy, and that have been put forward 
by human Reason in default of the required Critique of 
its pure use. Such are either Empirical or Rational. The 
Empirical, embodying the principle of Happiness, are founded 
on (1) physical or (2) moral feeling ; the Rational, embodying 
the principle of perfection, on (1) the rational conception of it 
as a possible result, or (2) the conception of an independent 
perfection (the Will of God), as the determining cause of the 
will. The Empirical principles are altogether to be rejected, 



736 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — KANT. 

because they can give no universal law for all rational beings ; 
of the Rational principles, the first, though setting up an 
empty and indefinite conception, has the merit of at least 
making an appeal from sense to pure reason. But the fatal 
objection to all four is their implying Heteronomy ; no impera- 
tive founded on them can utter moral, i.e., categorical 
commands. 

That the absolutely good Will must be autonomous — 
i.e., without any kind of motive or interest, lay commands 
on itself that are at the same time fit to be laws for 
all rational beings, appears, then, from a deeper considera- 
tion of even the popular conceptions of morality. But 
now the question can no longer be put off: Is Morality, of 
which this is the only conception, a reality or a phantom ? 
All the different expressions given to the Categorical Impera- 
tives are synthetic practical propositions djpriori ; they postu- 
late a possible synthetic use of the pure practical reason. Is 
there, and hew is there, such a possible synthetic use ? This 
is the question (the same as the other) that Kant proceeds to 
answer in the Third Section, by giving, in default of a com- 
plete Critique of the faculty, as much as is necessary for the 
purpose. But here, since he afterwards undertook the full 
Critique, it is better to stop the analysis of the earlier work, 
and summarily draw upon both for the remainder of the 
argument, and the rather because some important points 
have to be added that occur only in the later treatise. The 
foregoing is a sufficient example of his method of treatment. 

The synthetic use of the pure practical reason, in the Cate- 
gorical Imperative, is legitimized ; Autonomy of the Will is 
explained; Duty is shown to be no phantom — through the 
conception of Freedom of Will, properly understood. Theoreti- 
cally (speculatively), Freedom is un demonstrable ; being 
eternally met, in one of the (cosmological) Antinomies of the 
Pure Reason, by the counter-assertion that everything in the 
universe takes place according to unchanging laws of nature. 
Even theoretically, however, Freedom is not inconceivable, 
and morally we become certain of it ; for we are conscious of 
the 'ought' of duty, and with the ' ought ' there must go a 
' can.' It is not, however, as Phenomenon or Sensible Ens 
that a man ' can/ is free, has an absolute initiative ; all pheno- 
mena or Sensible Entia, being in space and time, are subject 
to the Natural Law of Causality. But man is also Noumenon, 
Thing- in- self, Intelligible Ens ; and as such, being free from 
conditions of time and space, stands outside of the sequence 



POSTULATES OF THE PRACTICAL KEASON. 737 






of Nature. Now, the Noumenon or Ens of the Reason (he 
assumes) stands higher than, or has a value above, the Pheno- 
menon or Sensible Ens (as much as Reason stands higher 
than Sense and Inclination) ; accordingly, while it is only man 
as Noumenon that c can,' it is to man as Phenomenon that the 
* ought' is properly addressed ; it is upon man as Phenomenon 
that the law of Duty, prescribed, with perfect freedom from 
motive, by Man as Noumenon, is laid. 

Freedom of Will in Man as Rational End or Thing-in-self 
is thus the great Postulate of the pure Practical Reason ; we 
can be sure of the fact (although it must always remain spe- 
culatively undemonstrable), because else there could be no 
explanation of the Categorical Imperative of Duty. But inas- 
much as the Practical Reason, besides enjoining a law of 
Duty, must provide also a final end of action in the idea of an 
unconditioned Supreme Good, it contains also two other Pos- 
tulates : Man being a sentient as well as a rational being, 
Happiness as well as Perfect Virtue or Moral Perfection must 
enter into the Summum Bonum (not, one of them to the 
exclusion of the other, as the Stoics and Epicureans, in dif- 
ferent senses, declared). Now, since there is no such necessary 
conjunction of the two in nature, it must be sought otherwise. 
It is found in postulating Immortality and God. 

Immortality is required to render possible the attainment 
of moral perfection. Virtue out of respect for law, with a con- 
stant tendency to fall away, is all that is attainable in life. 
The Holiness, or complete accommodation of the will to the 
Moral Law, implied in the Summum Bonum, can be attained 
to only in the course of an infinite progression ; which means 
personal Immortality. [As in the former case, the specula- 
tive impossibility of proving the immateriality, &c, of the 
supernatural soul is not here overcome ; but Immortality is 
morally certain, being demanded by the Practical Reason.] 

Moral perfection thus provided for, God must be postulated 
in order to find the ground of the required conjunction of 
Felicity. Happiness is the condition of the rational being in 
whose whole existence everything goes according to wish and 
will ; and this is not the condition of man, for in him observ- 
ance of the moral law is not conjoined with power of disposal 
over the laws of nature. But, as Practical Reason demands 
the conjunction, it is to be found only in a being who is the 
author at once of Nature and of the Moral Law ; and this is 
God. [The same remark once more applies, that here -what 
is obtained is a moral certainty of the existence of the Deity : 
47 



738 



ETHICAL SYSTEMS — KA.NT. 



the negative result of the Critique of the Pare (speculative) 
Reason abides what it was.] 

We may now attempt to summarize this abstruse Ethical 
theory of Kant. 

I. — The Standard of morally good action (or rather Will), 
as expressed in the different forms of the Categorical Impera- 
tive, is the possibility of its being universally extended as a 
law for all rational beings. His meaning comes out still better 
in the obverse statement : The action is bad that cannot he, or 
at least cannot he wished to he, turned unto a universal law. 

II. — Kant would expressly demur to being questioned as 
to his Psychology of Ethics ; since he puts his own theory in 
express opposition to every other founded upon any empirical 
view of the mental constitution. Nevertheless, we may 
extract some kind of answers to the usual queries. 

The Faculty is the (pure Practical) Reason. The appre- 
hension of what is morally right is entirely an affair of Reason ; 
the only element of Feeling is an added Sentiment of Awe or 
Respect for the law that Reason imposes, this being a law, 
not only for me who impose it on myself, but at the same 
time for every rational agent. [The Pure Reason, which 
means with Kant the Faculty of Principles, is Speculative or 
Practical. As Speculative, it requires us to bring our know- 
ledge (of the understanding) to certain higher unconditioned 
unities (Soul, Cosmos, God) ; but there is error if these are 
themselves regarded as facts of knowledge. As Practical, it 
sets up an unconditional law of Duty in Action (unconditioned 
by motives) ; and in this and in the related conception of the 
Summum Bonum is contained a moral certainty of the Immor- 
tality (of the soul), Freedom (in the midst of Natural Neces- 
sity), and of God as existent.] 

As to the point of Free-will, nothing more need be said. 

Disinterested Sentiment, as sentiment, is very little re- 
garded : disinterested action is required with such rigour that 
every act or disposition is made to lose its character as moral, 
according as any element of interested feeling of any kind 
enters into it. Kant obliterates the line between Duty and 
Virtue, by making a duty of every virtue ; at least he con- 
ceives clearly that there is no Virtue in doing what we are 
strongly prompted to by inclination — that virtue must involve 
self-sacrifice. 

III. — His position with respect to Happiness is peculiar. 
Happiness is not the end of action : the end of action is rather 
the self-assertion of the rational faculty over the lower man. 



DUTIES. 739 

If the constituents of Happiness could be known — and they 
cannot be — there would be no morality, but only prudence in 
the pursuit of them. To promote our own happiness is indeed a 
duty, but in order to keep us from neglecting our other duties. 

Nevertheless, he conceives it necessary that there should 
be an ultimate equation of Virtue and Happiness ; and the 
need of Happiness he then expressly connects with the sen- 
suous side of our being. 

IV. — His Moral Code may here be shortly presented 
from the second part of his latest work, where it is fully given. 
Distinguishing Moral Duties or (as he calls them) \ Virtue- 
duties J left to be enforced internally by Conscience, from 
Legal Duties (Pechtspflichteii) , externally enforced, he divides 
them into two classes — (A) Duties to Self; (B) Duties to 
Others. 

(A) Duties to Self. These have regard to the one private 
Aim or End that a man can make a duty of, viz., his own 
Perfection ; for his own Happiness, being provided for by a 
natural propensity or inclination, is to himself no duty. They 
are (a) perfect (negative or restrictive) as directed to mere 
Self- Conservation ; (&) imperfect (positive or extensive) as 
directed to the Advancement or Perfecting of one's being. 
The perfect are concerned about Self (a), as an Animal crea- 
ture, and then are directed against — (1) Self-destruction, (2) 
Sexual Excess, (3) Intemperance in Eating and Drinking; 
(/3) as a M< oral creature, and then are directed against — (1) 
Lying, (2) Avarice, (3) Servility. The imperfect have reference 
to (a) physical, (/3) moral advancement or perfection (subjec- 
tively. Purity or Holiness). 

(B) Duties to Others. These have regard to the only Aim 
or End of others that a man can make a duty of, viz., their 
Happiness ; for their Perfection can be promoted only by them- 
selves. Duties to others as men are metaphysically deducible ; 
and application to special conditions of men is to be made empiri- 
cally. They include (a) Duties of Love, involving Merit or 
Desert (i.e., return from the objects of them) in the perform- 
ance : (1) Beneficence, (2) Gratitude, (3) Fellow-feeling; (b) 
Duties of Respect, absolutely due to others as men; the 
oppositesare the vices: (1) Haughtiness, (2) Blander, (3) Scorn- 
fulness. In Friendship, Love and Respect are combined in 
the highest degree. Lastly, he notes Social duties in human 
intercourse {Affability, &c.) — these being outworks of morality. 

He allows no special Duties to God, or Inferior Creatures, 
beyond what is contained in Moral Perfection as Duty to Self. 



740 ETHICAL SYSTEMS— COUSIN. 

V. — The conception of Law enters largely into Kant's 
theory of morals, but in a sense purely transcendental, and 
not as subjecting or assimilating morality to positive political 
institution. The Legality of external actions, as well as the 
Morality of internal dispositions, is determined by reference 
to the one universal moral Imperative. The principle under- 
lying all legal or jural (as opposed to moral or ethical) pro- 
visions, is the necessity of uniting in a universal law of 
freedom the spontaneity of each with the spontaneity of all 
the others : individual freedom and freedom of all must be 
made to subsist together in a universal law. 

VI. — With Kant, Religion and Morality are very closely 
connected, or, in a sense, even identified ; but the alliance is 
not at the expense of Morality. So far from making this 
dependent on Religion, he can find nothing but the moral 
conviction whereon to establish the religious doctrines of 
Immortality and the Existence of God ; while, in a special 
work, he declares further that Religion consists merely in the 
practice of Morality as a system of divine commands, and 
claims to judge of all religious institutions and dogmas by the 
moral consciousness. Besides, the Postulates themselves, in 
which the passage to Religion is made, are not all equally 
imperative, — Freedom, as the ground of the fact of Duty, being 
more urgently demanded than others ; and he even goes so 
far as to make the allowance, that whoever has sufficient moral 
strength to fulfil the Law of Reason without them, is not 
required to subscribe to them. 

The modern French school, that has arisen in this cen- 
tury under the combined influence of the Scotch and the 
German philosophy, has bestowed some attention on Ethics. 
We end by noticing under it Cousin and Jouffroy. 

VICTOR COUSIN. [1792-1867.] 

The analysis of Cousin's ethical views is made upon his 
historical lectures Sur les Iclees du Vrai, du Beau et du Bien, 
as delivered in 1817-18. They contain a dogmatic exposition 
of his own opinions, beginning at the 20th lecture ; the three 
preceding lectures, in the section of the whole course devoted 
to the Good, being taken up with the preliminary review of 
other opinions required for his eclectical purpose. 

He determines to consider, by way of psychological analysis, 
the ideas and sentiments of every kind called up by the spec- 



FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS. 741 

tacle of human actions ; and first lie notes actions that please 
and displease the senses, or in some way affect our interest : 
those that are agreeable and useful we naturally choose, avoid- 
ing the opposites, and in this we axe prudent. But there is 
another set of actions, having no reference to our own per- 
sonal interest, which yet we qualify as good or bad. When 
an armed robber kills and spoils a defenceless man, we, though 
beholding the sight in safety, are at once stirred up to disin- 
terested horror and indignation. This is no mere passing sen- 
timent, but includes a two-fold judgment, pronounced then 
and ever after ; that the action is in itself bad, and that it 
ought not to be committed. Still farther, our anger implies 
that the object of it is conscious of the evil and the obligation, 
and is therefore responsible ; wherein again is implied that he 
is a free agent. And, finally, demanding as we do that he 
should be punished, we pass what has been called a judgment 
of merit and demerit, which is built upon an idea in our minds 
of a supreme law, joining happiness to virtue and misfortune 
to crime. 

The analysis thus far he claims to be strictly scientific ; he 
now proceeds to vary the case, taking actions of our own. I 
am supposed entrusted by a dying friend with a deposit for 
another, and a struggle ensues between interest and probity 
as to whether I should pay it. If interest conquers, remorse 
ensues. He paints the state of remorse, and analyzes it into 
the same elements as before, the idea of good and evil, of an 
obligatory law, of liberty, of merit and demerit ; it thus includes 
the whole phenomenon of morality. The exactly opposite state 
that follows upon the victory of probity, is proved to imply 
the same facts. 

The Moral Sentiment, so striking in its character, has by 
some been supposed the foundation of all morality, but in 
point of fact it is itself constituted by these various judgments. 
Now that they are known to stand as its elements, he 
goes on to subject each to a stricter analysis, taking first 
the judgment of good and evil, which is at the bottom of 
all the rest. It lies in the original constitution of human 
nature, being simple and indecomposable, like the judg- 
ment of the True and the Beautiful. It is absolute, and 
cannot be withheld in presence of certain acts ; but it only 
declares, and does not constitute, good and evil, these being 
real and independent qualities of actions. Applied at first to 
special cases, the judgment of good gives birth to general 
principles that become rules for judging other actions. Like 



742 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — COUSIN. 

other sciences, morality has its axioms, justly called moral 
truths ; if it is good to keep an oath, it is also true, the oath 
being made with no other purpose than to be kept. Faith- 
ful guarding as much belongs to the idea of a deposit, as the 
equality between its three angles and two right angles to the 
idea of a triangle. By no caprice or effort of will can a moral 
verity be made in the smallest degree other than it is. 

But, he goes on, a moral verity is not simply to be be- 
lieved ; it must also be practised, and this is obligation, the 
second of the elements of moral sentiment. Obligation, like 
moral truth, on which it rests, is absolute, immutable, univer- 
sal. Kant even went so far as to make it the principle of our 
morality ; but this was subjectivizing good, as he had subjec- 
tivized truth. Before there is an obligation to act, there must 
be an intrinsic goodness in the action ; the real first truth of 
morality is justice, i.e., the essential distinction of good and 
evil. It is justice, therefore, and not duty, that strictly de- 
serves the name of a principle. 

The next element is liberty. Obligation implies the faculty 
of resisting desire, passion, &c, else there would be a contra- 
diction in human nature. But the truest proof of liberty is to 
be sought in the constant testimony of consciousness, that, in 
wishing this or that, I am equally able to will the contrary. 
He distinguishes between the power of willing and the power 
of executing ; also between will and desire, or passion. In the 
conflict between will and the tyranny of desire lies liberty ; 
and the aim of the conflict is the fulfilment of duty. For the 
will is never so free, never so much itself, as when yielding to 
the law of duty. Persons are distinguished from Things in 
having responsibility, dignity, intrinsic value. Because there 
is in me a being worthy of respect, I am bound in duty to 
respect myself, and have the right to be respected by you. 
My duty (he means, of course, what I owe to self) is the exact 
measure of my right. The character of being a person is in- 
violable, is the foundation of property, is inalienable by self 
or others, and so forth. 

He passes to the last element of the phenomenon of 
morality, the judgment of merit and demerit The judgment 
follows, as the agent is supposed free, and it is not affected 
by lapse of time. It depends also essentially on the idea that 
the agent knows good from evil. Upon itself follow the 
notions of reward and punishment. Merit is the natural right 
to be rewarded ; demerit, paradox as it may appear, the right 
to be punished. A criminal would claim to be punished, if 



ETHICAL SENTIMENT. 743 

lie could comprehend the absolute necessity of expiation ; and 
are there not real cases of such criminals ? But as there can 
be merit without actual reward, so to be rewarded does not 
constitute merit. 

If good, he continues, is good in itself, and ought to be 
done without regard to consequences, it is no less true that 
the consequences of good cannot fail to be happy. Virtue 
without happiness and crime without misfortune are a con- 
tradiction, a disorder; which are hardly met with in the 
world, even as it is, or, where in a few cases they are found, 
are sure to be righted in the end by eternal justice. The 
sacrifice supposed in virtue, if generously accepted and cour- 
ageously undergone, has to be recompensed in respect of the 
amount of happiness sacrificed. 

Once more, he takes up the Sentiment, which is the general 
echo of all the elements of the phenomenon. Its end is to 
make the mind sensible of the bond between virtue and hap- 
piness ; it is the direct and vivid application of the law of 
merit. Again, he touches the states of moral satisfaction and 
remorse, speaks of our sympathy with the moral goodness of 
others and our benevolent feeling that arises towards them — 
emotions all, but covering up judgments ; and this is the end 
of his detailed analysis of the actual facts of the case. But 
he still goes on to sum up in exact expressions the foregoing 
results, and he claims especially to have overlooked neither 
the part played by Reason, nor the function of Sentiment. 
The rational character of the idea of good gives morality its 
firm foundation; the lively sentiment helps to lighten the 
often heavy burden of duty, and stirs up to the most heroic 
deeds. Self-interest too is not denied its place. In this con- 
nexion, led again to allude to the happiness appointed to 
virtue here or at least hereafter, he allows that God may be 
regarded as the fountain of morality, but only in the sense 
that his will is the expression of his eternal wisdom and 
justice. Religion crowns morality, but morality is based 
upon itself. The rest of the lecture is in praise of Eclecticism, 
and advocates consideration of all the facts involved in 
morality, as against exclusive theories founded upon only 
some of the facts. 

Lectures 21st and 22nd, compressed into one (Ed. 1846) 
contain the application of the foregoing principles, and the 
answer to the question, what our duties are. Duty being 
absolute, truth becomes obligatory, and absolute truth being 
known by the reason only, to obey the law of duty is to obey 



744 



ETHICAL SYSTEMS — COUSIN. 



reason. But what actions are conformable to reason ? The 
characteristic of reason he takes to be Universality, and this 
will appear in the motives of actions, since it is these that 
confer on actions their morality. Accordingly, the sign where- 
by to discover whether an action is duty, is, if its motive 
when generalized appear to the reason to be a maxim of 
universal legislation for all free and intelligent beings. This, 
the norm set up by Kant, as certainly discovers what is and 
is not duty, as the syllogism detects the error and truth of an 
argument. 

To obey reason is, then, the first duty, at the root of all 
others, and itself resting directly upon the relation between 
liberty and reason ; in a sense, to remain reasonable is the 
sole duty. But it assumes special forms amid the diversity of 
human relations. He first considers the relations wherein 
we stand to ourselves and the corresponding duties. That 
there should be any such duties is at first sight strange, 
seeing we belong to ourselves ; but this is not the same as 
having complete power over ourselves. Possessing liberty, 
we must not abdicate it by yielding to passions, and treat 
ourselves as if there were nothing in us that merits respect. 
We are to distinguish between what is peculiar to each of us, 
and what we share with humanity. Individual peculiarities 
are things indifferent, but the liberty and intelligence that 
constitute us persons, rather than individuals, demand to be 
respected even by ourselves. There is an obligation of self- 
respect imposed upon us as moral persons that was not estab- 
lished, and is not to be destroyed, by us. As special cases 
of this respect of the moral person in us, he cites (1) the 
duty of self-control against anger or melancholy, not for their 
pernicious consequences, but as trenching upon the moral 
dignity of liberty and intelligence ; (2) the duty of prudence, 
meaning providence in all things, which regulates courage, 
enjoins temperance, is, as the ancients said, the mother of all 
the virtues, — in short, the government of liberty by reason ; 
(3) veracity; (4) duty towards the body; (5) duty of per- 
fecting (and not merely keeping intact) the intelligence, 
liberty, and sensibility that constitute us moral beings. 

But the same liberty and intelligence that constitute me a 
moral person, and need thus to be respected even by myself, 
exist also in others, conferring rights on them, and imposing 
new duties of respect on me relatively to them. To their 
intelligence I owe Truth ; their liberty I am bound to respect, 
sometimes even to the extent of not hindering them from 



GROUNDS OF THE SEVERAL DUTIES. 745 

making a wrong use of it, I must respect also their affections 
(family, &c.) which form part of themselves ; their bodies ; 
their goods, whether acquired by labour or heritage. All these 
duties are summed up in the one great duty of Justice or 
respect for the rights of others ; of which the greatest violation 
is slavery. 

The whole of duty towards others is not however compre- 
hended in justice. Conscience complains, if we have only not 
done injustice to one in suffering. There is a new class of 
duties — consolation, charity, sacrifice — to which indeed cor- 
respond no rights, and which therefore are not so obligatory 
as justice, but which cannot be said not to be obligatory. 
From their nature, they cannot be reduced to an exact for- 
mula ; their beauty lies in liberty. But in charity, he adds, 
there is also a danger, from its effacing, to a certain extent, the 
moral personality of the object of it. In acting upon others, 
we risk interfering with their natural rights ; charity is there- 
fore to be proportioned to the liberty and reason of the person 
benefited, and is never to be made the means of usurping 
power over another. 

Justice and Charity are the two elements composing social 
morality. But what is social ? and on what is Society founded, 
existing as it does everywhere, and making man to be what 
he is ? Into the hopeless question of its origin he refuses to 
enter ; its present state is to be studied by the light of the 
knowledge of human nature. Its invariable foundations are 

(1) the need we have of each ether, and our social instincts, 

(2) the lasting and indestructible idea and sentiment of right 
and justice. The need and instinct, of which he finds many 
proofs, begin society ; justice crowns the work. The least 
consideration of the relations of man to man, suggest the 
essential principles of Society — justice, liberty, equality, 
government, punishment. Into each of these he enters. 
Liberty is made out to be assured and developed in society, 
instead of diminished. Equality is established upon the char- 
acter of moral personality, which admits of no degree. The 
need of some repression upon liberty, where the liberty of 
others is trenched upon, conducts to the idea of Government — 
a disinterested third party armed with the necessary power to 
assure and defend the liberty of all. To government is to be 
ascribed, first its inseparable function of protecting the com- 
mon liberty (without unnecessary repression), and next, bene- 
ficent action, corresponding to the duty of charity. It requires, 
for its guidance, a rule superior to itself, i.e^ law, the expres- 



746 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — JOUFFROY. 

sion of universal and absolute justice. Here follows the usual 
distinction of positive and natural law. The sanction of law 
is punishment ; the right of punishing, as was seen, depend- 
ing on the idea of demerit. Punishment is not mere venge- 
ance, but the expiation by the criminal of violated justice ; it is 
to be measured therefore chiefly by the demerit and not by the 
injury only. Whether, in punishing, allowance should be 
made for correction and amelioration, is to put the same case 
over again of charity coming in after justice. 

Here the philosopher stops on the threshold of the special 
science of politics, But already the fixed and invariable prin- 
ciples of society and government have been given, and, even 
in the relative sphere of politics, the rule still holds that all 
forms and institutions are to be moulded as far as possible on 
the eternal principles supplied by philosophy. 

The following is a summary of Cousin's views : — 

I. — The Standard is the judgment of good or evil in 
actions. Cousin holds that good and evil are qualities of 
actions independent of our judgment, and having a sort of 
objective existence. 

II. — The Moral Faculty he analyzes into four judgments : 
(1) good and evil; (2) obligation; (.3) freedom of the will ; 
and (4±) merit and demerit. The moral sentiment is the 
emotions connected with those judgments,, and chiefly the 
feeling connected with the idea of merit. [This analysis is 
obviously redundant. 'Good' and 'evil' apply to many 
things outside ethics, and to be at all appropriate, they must 
be qualified as moral (i.e., obligatory} good and evil. The 
connexion between obligation and demerit has been previously 
explained.] 

III. — In regard to the Summum Bonum, Cousin considers 
that virtue must bring happiness here or hereafter, and vice, 
misery. 

IV. — He accepts the criterion of duties set forth by Kant. 
He argues for the existence of duties towards ourselves. 

V. and VI. require no remark. 

THEODORE SIMON JOUFFROY. [1796-1842.] 

In the Second Lecture of his unfinished Gours de Droit 
Naturel, JoufFroy gives a condensed exposition of the Moral 
Facts of human nature from his own point of view. 

What distinguishes, he says, one being from another, is its 
Organization ; and as having a special nature, every creature has 



EVEKY BEING HAS ITS SPECIAL END. 747 

a special end. Its end or destination is its good, or its good 
consists in the accomplishment of its end. Further, to have 
an end implies the possession of faculties wherewith to attain 
it ; and all this is applicable also to man. In man, as in other 
creatures, from the very first, his nature tends to its end, by 
means of purely instinctive movements, which may be called 
primitive and instinctive tendencies of human nature ; later 
they are called passions. Along with these tendencies, and 
under their influence, the intellectual faculties also awake and 
seek to procure for them satisfaction. The faculties work, 
however, at first, in an indeterminate fashion, and only by 
meeting obstacles are driven to the concentration necessary to 
attain the ends. He illustrates this by the case of the intel- 
lectual faculty seeking to satisfy the desire of knowledge, and 
not succeeding until it concentrates on a single point its 
scattered energies. This spontaneous concentration is the 
first manifestation of Will, but is proved to be not natural 
from the feeling of constraint always experienced, and the 
glad rebound, after effort, to the indeterminate condition. 
One fact, too, remains even after everything possible has been 
done, viz., that the satisfaction of the primitive tendencies is 
never quite complete. 

When, however, such satisfaction as may be, has been 
attained, there arises pleasure ; and pain, when our faculties 
fail to attain the good or end they sought. There could be 
action, successful and unsuccessful, and so good and evil, 
without any sensibility, wherefore good and evil are not to be 
confounded with pain and pleasure ; but constituted as we 
are, there is a sensible echo that varies according as the result 
of action is attained or not. Pleasure is, then, the conse- 
quence, and r as it were r the sign of the realization of good, 
and pain of its privation. 

He next distinguishes Secondary passions from the great 
primary tendencies and passions. These arise apropos of 
external objects, as they are found to further or oppose the 
satisfaction of the fundamental tendencies. Such objects are 
then called useful or pernicious. Finally, he completes his 
account of the infantile or primitive condition of man, by 
remarking that some of our natural tendencies, like Sympathy, 
are entirely disinterested in seeking the good of others. The 
main feature of the whole primitive state is the exclusive 
domination of passion. The will already exists, but there is 
no liberty ; the present passion triumphs over the future, the 
stronger over the weaker. 



748 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — JOUFFKOY. 

He now passes to consider the double transformation of 
this original state, that takes place when reason appears. 
Reason is the faculty of comprehending, which is different from 
knowing, and is peculiar to man. As soon as it awakes in man, 
it comprehends, and penetrates to the meaning of, the whole 
spectacle of human activity. It first forms the general idea 
of Good, as the resultant of the satisfaction of all the primary 
tendencies, and as the true End of man-. Then, comprehend- 
ing the actual situation of man, it resolves this idea into the 
idea of the greatest possible good. All that conduces to the 
attainment of this good, it includes under the general idea of 
the Useful; and finally, it constructs the general idea of 
Happiness out of all that is common to the agreeable sensa- 
tions that follow upon the satisfaction of the primary ten- 
dencies. 

But besides forming these three perfectly distinct ideas, 
and exploring the secret of what has been passing within, the 
reason also comprehends the necessity of subjecting to control 
the faculties and forces that are the condition of the greatest 
satisfaction of human nature. In the place of the merely 
mechanical impulsion of passion, which is coupled with grave 
disadvantages, it puts forward, as a new principle of action, 
the rational calculation of interest. The faculties are brought 
into the service of this idea of the reason, by the same process 
of concentration as was needful in satisfying the passions ; 
only now voluntarily instead of spontaneously. Being an idea 
instead of a passion, the new principle supplies a real motive, 
under whose guidance our natural power over our faculties 
is developed and strengthened. All partial ends are merged 
in the one great End of Interest, to which the means is self- 
control. The first great change thus wrought by reason is, 
that it takes the direction of the human forces into its own 
hand, and although, even when by a natural transformation 
the new system of conduct acquires all the force of a passion, 
it is not able steadily to procure for the idea of interest the 
victory over the single passions, the change nevertheless 
abides. To the state of Passion has succeeded the state of 
Egoism. 

Reason must, however, he thinks, make another discovery 
before there is a truly moral state — must from general ideas 
rise to ideas that are universal and absolute. There is no 
real equation, he holds, between Good and the satisfaction of 
the primitive tendencies,, which is the good of egoism. Not 
till the special ends of all creatures are regarded as elements 



IDEA OF UNIVERSAL ORDER. 749 

of one great End of creation, of Universal Order, do we obtain 
an idea whose equivalence to the idea of the Good requires no 
proof. The special ends are good, because, through their 
realization, the end of creation, which is the absolute Good, 
is realized ; hence they acquire the sacred character that it 
has in the eye of reason. 

No sooner is the idea of Universal Order present to the 
reason, than it is recognized as an absolute law ; and, in con- 
sequence, the special end of our being, by participation in its 
character of goodness and sacredness^ is henceforth pursued 
as a duty, and its satisfaction claimed as a right. Also every 
creature assumes the same position, and we no longer merely 
concede that others have tendencies to be satisfied, and con- 
sent from Sympathy or Egoism to promote their good ; but 
the idea of Universal Order makes it as much our duty to re- 
spect and contribute to the accomplishment of their good as 
to accomplish our own. From the idea of good-in- itself, i.e., 
Order, flow all duty, right, obligation, morality, and natural 
legislation. 

He carries the idea of Order still farther back to the 
Deity, making it the expression of the divine thought, and 
opening up the religious side of morality ; but he does not 
mean that its obligatoriness as regards the reason is thereby 
increased. He also identifies it, in the last resort, with the 
ideas of the Beautiful and the True. 

We have now reached the truly moral condition, a state 
perfectly distinct from either of the foregoing. Even when 
the egoistic and the moral determination prescribe the same 
conduct, the one only counsels, while the other obliges. The 
one, having in view only the greatest satisfaction of our 
nature, is personal even when counselling benefits to others ; 
the other regarding only the law of Order, something distinct 
from self, is impersonal, even when prescribing our own good. 
Hence there is in the latter case devouement of self to some- 
thing else, and it is exactly the devouement to a something 
that is not self, but is regarded as good, that gets the name 
of virtue or moral good. Moral good is voluntary and intel- 
ligent obedience to the law that is the rule of our conduct. 
As an additional distinction between the egoistic and the moral 
determination, he mentions the judgment of merit or demerit 
that ensues upon actions when, and only when, they have a 
moral character. No remorse follows an act of mere 
imprudence involving no violation of universal order. 

He denies that there is any real contradiction among the 



750 ETHICAL SYSTEMS — JOUFFROY. 

three different determinations. Nothing is prescribed in the 
moral law that is not also in accordance with some primitive 
tendency, and with self-interest rightly nnderstood ; if it were 
not so, it would go hard with virtue, On the other hand, if 
everything not done from regard to duty were opposed to 
moral law and order, society could not only not subsist, but 
would never have been formed. When a struggle does ensue 
between passion and self-interest, passion is blind; when 
between egoism and the moral determination, egoism is at 
fault. It is in the true interest of Passion to be sacrificed to 
Egoism, and of Egoism to be sacrificed to Order. 

He closes the review of the various moral facts by 
explaining in what sense the succession of the three states 
is to be understood. The state of Passion is historically 
first, but the Egoistic and the Moral states are not so sharply 
defined. As soon as reason dawns it introduces the moral 
motive as well as the egoistic, and to this extent the two 
states are contemporaneous. Only, so far is the moral law 
from being at this stage fully conceived, that, in the majority 
of men, it is never conceived in its full clearness at all. Their 
confused idea of moral law is the so-called moral conscience, 
which works more like a sense or an instinct, and is inferior 
to the clear rational conception in everything except that it 
conveys the full force of obligation. In its grades of guilt 
human justice rightly makes allowance for different degrees 
of intelligence. The Egoistic determination and the Moral 
state, such as it is, once developed, passion is not to be sup- 
posed abolished, but henceforth what really takes place in 
all is a perpetual alternation, of the various states. Yet though 
no man is able exclusively to follow the moral determination, 
and no man will constantly be under the influence of any one 
of the motives, there is one motive commonly uppermost 
whereby each can be characterized. Thus men, according 
to their habitual conduct, are known as passionate, egoistic, or 
virtuous. 

We now summarize the opinions of Jouffroy : — 
I. — The Standard is the Idea of Absolute Good or Uni- 
versal Order in the sense explained by the author. Like 
Cousin, he identifies the ' good ' with the ' true.' What, 
then, is the criterion that distinguishes moral from other 
truths ? If obligation be selected as the differentia, it is in 
effect to give up the attempt to determine what truths are 
obligatory. The idea of i good ' is obviously too vague to be 
a differentia. How far the idea of ' Universal Order ' gets us 



SUMMARY. 751 

out of the difficulty may be doubted, especially after the 
candid admission of the author, that it is an idea of which the 
majority of men have never any very clear notions. 

II. — The moral faculty is Reason ; ConscieDce is hardly 
more than a confused feeling of obligatoriness. 

Sympathy is one of the primitive tendencies of our nature. 
Jouffroy's opinion on the subject is open to the objections 
urged against Butler's psychology. 

He upholds the freedom of the Will, but embarrasses his 
argument by admitting, like Reid, that there is a stage in our 
existence when we are ruled by the passions, and are destitute 
of liberty. 

III. — The Summum Bonum is the end of every creature ; 
the passions ought to be subordinated to self-interest, and 
self-interest to morality. 

In regard to the other points, it is unnecessary to continue 
the summary. 



APPENDIX. 



A. — History of Nominalism and Eealism } p. 181. 

The controversy respecting Universals first obtained its place 
in philosophy from the colloquies of Sokrates, and the writings 
and teachings of Plato. We need not here touch upon their pre- 
decessors Parmenides and Heracleitus, who, in a confused and 
unsytematic manner, approached this question from opposite 
sides, and whose speculations worked much upon the mind of 
Plato in determining both his aggressive dialectic, and his con- 
structive theories. Parmenides of Elea, improving upon the ruder 
conceptions of Xenophanes, was the first to give emphatic pro- 
clamation to the celebrated Eleatie doctrine, Absolute Ens as 
opposed to Relative Fientia : i.e., the Cogitable, which Parmenides 
conceived as the One and All of reality, "Ev ko.1 Tiav, enduring and 
unchangeable, of which the negative was unmeaning; and the 
Sensible or Perceivable, which was in perpetual change, succes- 
sion, and multiplicity, without either unity, or reality, or endur- 
ance. To the last of these two departments Heracleitus assigned 
especial prominence. In place of the permanent underlying Ens, 
which he did not recognize, he substituted a cogitable process of 
change, or generalized concept of what was common to all the 
successive phases of change — a perpetual stream of generation and 
destruction, or implication of contraries, in which everything 
appeared only that it might disappear, without endurance or 
uniformity. In this doctrine of Heracleitus, the world of sense 
and particulars could not be the object either of certain knowledge 
or even of correct probable opinion ; in that of Parmenides, it was 
recognized as an object of probable opinion, though not of certain 
knowledge. But in both doctrines, as well as in the theories of 
Democritus, it was degraded, and presented as incapable of yield- 
ing satisfaction to the search of a philosophizing mind, which 
could find neither truth nor reality except in the world of Concepts 
and Cogitata. 

Besides the two theories above-mentioned, there were current 
in the Hellenic world, before the maturity of Sokrates, several 
other veins of speculation about the Cosmos, totally divergent 
one from the other, and by that very divergence sometimes stimu- 
lating curiosity, sometimes discouraging all study, as though the 
48 



2 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

problems were hopeless. But Parmenides and Heracleitus, to- 
gether with the arithmetical and geometrical hypotheses of the 
Pythagoreans, are expressly noticed by Aristotle as having specially 
contributed to form the philosophy of Plato. 

Neither Parmenides, nor Heracleitus, nor the Pythagoreans, 
were Dialecticians. They gave out their own thoughts in their 
own way, with little or no regard to dissentients. They did 
not cultivate the art of argumentative attack or defence, nor the 
correct application and diversified confrontation of universal terms, 
which are the great instruments of that art. It was Zeno, the dis- 
ciple of Parmenides, that first employed Dialectic in support of his 
master's theory, or rather against the counter theories of oppo- 
nents. He showed, by arguments memorable for their subtlety, 
that the hypothesis of an Absolute, composed of Entia Plura Dis- 
continua, led to consequences even more absurd than those that 
opponents deduced from the Parmenidean hypothesis of Ens Unum 
Continuum. The Dialectic, thus inaugurated by Zeno, reached 
still higher perfection in the colloquies of Sokrates ; who not only 
employed a new method, but also introduced new topics of debate 
— ethical, political, and social matters instead of physics and the 
Cosmos. 

The peculiar originality of Sokrates is well known : a man who 
wrote nothing, but passed his life in indiscriminate colloquy with 
every one ; who professed to have no knowledge himself, but in- 
terrogated others on matters that they talked about familiarly 
and professed to know well ; whose colloquies generally ended by 
puzzling the respondents, and by proving to themselves that they 
neither knew nor could explain even matters that they had 
begun by affirming confidently as too clear to need explana- 
tion. Aristotle tells us * that Sokrates was the first that set him- 
self expressly and methodically to scrutinize the definitions of 
general or universal terms, and to confront them, not merely with 
each other, but also, by a sort of inductive process, with many 
particular cases that were, or appeared to be, included under 
them. And both Xenophon and Plato give us abundant ex- 
amples of the terms to which Socrates applied his interroga- 
tories : — What is the Holy ? What is the Unholy ? What is the 
Beautiful or Honourable? What is the Ugly or Base? What is 
Justice — Inj ustice — Temperance — Madness — Courage — Cowardice 
— A City — A man fit for civil life ? What is the Command of Men ? 
What is the character fit for commanding men? Such are the 
specimens, furnished by a hearer, f of the universal terms whereon 
the interrogatories of Sokrates bore. All of them were terms 
spoken and heard familiarly by citizens in the market-place, as if 
each understood them perfectly; but when Sokrates, professing 
his own ignorance, put questions asking for solutions of difficul- 
ties that perplexed his own mind, the answers showed that these 

* Metaphysics, A. 987, b. 2 ; M. 1078, b. 18. 
f Xenophon Memorab. I. 1, 16 ; IV. 6, 1-13. 



SOKRATES ON UNIVERSAL TERMS. 3 

£ 

difficulties were equally insoluble by respondents, who bad never 
tbougbt of tbem before. Tbe confident persuasion of knowledge, 
with which the colloquy began, stood exposed as a false persua- 
sion without any basis of reality. Such illusory semblance of 
knowledge was proclaimed by Sokrates to be the chronic, though 
unconscious, intellectual condition of his contemporaries. How he 
undertook, as the mission of a long life, to expose it, is impres- 
sively set forth in the Platonic Apology. 

It was thus by Sokrates that the meaning of universal terms 
and universal propositions, and the relation of each respectively 
to particular terms and particular propositions, were first made a 
subject of express enquiry and analytical interrogation. His 
influence was powerful in imparting the same dialectic impulse 
to several companions : but most of all to Plato : who not only 
enlarged and amplified the range of Sokratic enquiry, but also 
brought the meaning of universal terms into something like 
system and theory, as a portion of the conditions of trustworthy 
science. Plato was the first to affirm the doctrine afterwards 
called Eealism, as the fundamental postulate of all true and 
proved cognition. He affirmed it boldly, and in its most ex- 
tended sense, though he also produces (according to his frequent 
practice) many powerful arguments and unsolved objections 
against it. It was he (to use the striking phrase of Milton *) 
that first imported into the schools the portent of Eealism. The 
doctrine has been since opposed, confuted, curtailed, transformed, 
diversified in many ways : but it has maintained its place in 
logical speculation, and has remained, under one phraseology or 
another, the creed of various philosophers, from that time down 
to the present. 

The following account of the problems of Eealism was handed 
down to the speculations of the mediaeval philosophers, by 
Porhpyry (between 270-300 A.D.), in his Introduction to the 
treatise of Aristotle on the Categories. After informing 
Chrysaorius that he will prepare for him a concise statement 
of the doctrines of the old philosophers respecting Genus, Dif- 
ferentia, Species, Proprium, Accidens — ' abstaining from the 
deeper enquiries, but giving suitable development to the more 
simple,' — Porphyry thus proceeds — ' For example, I shall decline 
discussing, in respect to Genera and Species — (1) Whether they 
have a substantive existence, or reside merely in naked mental 
conceptions; (2) Whether, assuming them to have substantive 
existence, they are bodies or incorporeals ; (3) Whether their 
substantive existence is in and along with the objects of sense, or 
apart and separable. Upon this task I shall not enter, since it is 
of the greatest depth, and requires another larger investigation ; 
but shall try at once to show you how the ancients (especially 

* See the Latin verses — De Idea Flatonica quemadmodum Aristoteles 
irtellexit — 

' At tu, perenne ruris Academi decus, 
Haec monstra si tu primus iuduxti scholis,' &c* 



4 APPENDIX— NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

the Peripatetics), with a view to logical discourse, dealt with the 
topics now propounded.' * 

Before Porphyry, all these three problems had been largely 
debated, first by Plato, next by Aristotle against Plato, again by 
the Stoics against both, and lastly by Plotinus and the Neo- 
Platonists as conciliators of Plato with Aristotle. After Porphyry, 
problems the same, or similar, continued to stand in the fore- 
ground of speculation, until the authority of Aristotle became 
discredited at all points by the influences of the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries. But in order to find the beginning of 
them, as questions provoking curiosity and opening dissentient 
points of view to inventive dialecticians, we must go back to the 
age and the dialogues of Plato. 

The real Sokrates (i.e., as he is described by Xenophon) incul- 
cated in his conversation steady reverence for the invisible, as 
apart from and overriding the phenomena of sensible experience : 
but he interpreted the term in a religious sense, as signifying the 
agency of the personal gods, employed to produce effects beneficial 
or injurious to mankind. f He also puts forth his dialectic acute- 
ness to prepare consistent and tenable definitions of familiar 
general terms (of which instances have already been given), 
at least so far as to make others feel, for the first time, that 
they did not understand these terms, though they had been 
always talking like persons that did understand. But the Platonic 
Sokrates (i.e., as spokesman in the dialogues of Plato) enlarges 
both these discussions materially. Plato recognizes, not simply 
the invisible persons or gods, but also a separate world of in- 
visible, impersonal entities or objects : one of which he postulates 
as the objective reality, though only a cogitable reality, correlating 
with each general term. These Entia he considers to be not merely 
distinct realities, but the only true and knowable realities : they 
are eternal and unchangeable, manifested by the fact that parti- 
culars partake in them, and imparting a partial show of stability 
to the indeterminate flux of particulars : and unless such separate 
Universal Entia be supposed, there is nothing whereon cognition 
can fasten, and consequently there can be no cognition at all. J 
These are the substantive, self-existent Ideas or Forms that 
Plato first presented to the philosophical world : sometimes with 
logical acuteness, oftener still with rich poetical and imaginative 
colouring. They constitute the main body and characteristic of 
the hypothesis of Realism. 

But though the main hypothesis is the same, the accessories 
and manner of presentation differ materially among its dif- 
ferent advocates. In these respects, indeed, Plato differs not 
only from others, but also from himself. Systematic teaching or 
exposition is not his purpose, nor does he ever give opinions in 

* Porphyry— Introd. in Categor. init. 

t Xenophon Memorabil. I. 4, 9-17; IV. 3, 14. 

J Aristotel. Metaphys. I. 6, p. 987. b. 5; XIII. 4, p. 1078, b. 15. 



PLATONIC IDEAS. 5 

his own name. We have from him an aggregate of detached 
dialogues, in many of which this same hypothesis is brought 
under discussion. But in each dialogue, the spokesmen approach it 
from a different side : while in others (distinguished by various 
critics as the Sokratic dialogues), it does not come under dis- 
cussion at all ; Plato being content to remain upon the Sokratic 
platform, and to debate the meaning of general terms without 
postulating in correlation with them an objective reality, apart 
from their respective particulars. 

At the close of the Platonic dialogue called Kratylus, 
Sokrates is introduced as presenting the hypothesis of self-existent, 
eternal, unchangeable Ideas (exactly in the way that Aristotle 
ascribes to Plato) as the counter-proposition to the theory of 
universal flux and change announced by Heracleitus. Particulars 
are ever changing (it is here argued) and are thus out of the reach 
of cognition ; but unless the Universal Ideas above them, such as 
the Self-beautiful, the Self-good, &c. , be admitted as unchangeable 
objective realities, there can be nothing either nameable or know- 
able : cognition becomes impossible. 

In the Timaetjs, Plato describes the construction of the 
Cosmos by a divine Architect, and the model followed by the 
latter in his work. The distinction is here again brought out, 
and announced as capital, between the permanent, unalterable 
Entia, and the transient, ever-fluctuating, Fientia, which come 
and go, but never really are. Entia are apprehended by the cogi- 
tant or intelligent soul of the Kosmos, Fientia by the sentient or 
percipient soul ; the cosmical soul as a whole, in order to suffice 
for both these tasks, is made up of diverse component elements — 
Idem, correlating with the first of the two — Diversum, correlating 
with the second — and Idem implicated with Diversum, correspond- 
ing to both in conjunction. The Divine Architect is described 
as constructing a Cosmos, composed both of soul and body, upon 
the pattern of the grand pre-existent Idea — Auto-zoon or the 
Self- animal : which included in itself as a genus the four distinct 
species — celestial (gods, visible and invisible), terrestrial, aerial, 
and aquatic. 

The main point that Plato here insists upon is, the eternal 
and unchangeable reality of the cogitable objects called Ideas, 
prior both in time and in logical order to the transient objects of 
sight and touch, and serving as an exemplar to which these latter 
are made to approximate imperfectly. He assumes such priority, 
without proof, in the case of the Idea of Animal ; but when he 
touches upon the four elements — Fire, Air, Water, Earth — he 
hesitates to make the same assumption, and thinks himself re- 
quired to give a reason for it. The reason that he assigns 
(announced distinctly as his own) is as follows : If intellection 
(cogitation, T$ovg) y and true opinion, are two genera distinct from 
each other, there must clearly exist Forms or Ideas imperceptible 
to our senses, and apprehended only by cogitation or intellection : 
But if, as some persons think, true opinion is noway different 





b APPENDIX— NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

from intellection, then we must admit all the objects perceived by 
our senses as firm realities. Now, the fact is (he proceeds to say) 
that true opinion is not identical with intellection, but quite dis- 
tinct, separate, and unlike to it. Intellection is communicated by 
teaching, through true reasoning, and is unshakeable by persua- 
sion ; true opinion is communicated by persuasion and removed by 
counter-persuasion, without true reasoning. True opinion may 
belong to any man ; but intellection is the privilege only of gods 
and of a small section of mankind. Accordingly, since the two 
are distinct, the objects correlating with each of them must also be 
distinct from each other. There must exist, first, primary, eternal, 
unchangeable Forms, apprehended by intellect or cogitation, but 
imperceptible by sense ; and, secondly, resemblances of these 
bearing the same name, generated and destroyed each in some 
place, and apprehended first by sense, afterwards by opinion. 
Thirdly, there must be the place wherein such resemblances are 
generated ; a place itself imperceptible by sense, yet postulated, 
as a receptacle indispensable for them, by a dreamy and spurious 
kind of computation. 

We see here that the proof given by Plato, in support of the 
existence of Forms as the primary realities, is essentially psycho- 
logical : resting upon the fact that there is a distinct mental 
energy or faculty called Intellection (apart from sense and 
opinion), which must have its distinct objective correlate; and 
upon the farther fact, that Intellection is the high preroga- 
tive of the gods, shared only by a few chosen men. This last 
point of the case is more largely and emphatically brought out in 
the Ph^drtts, where Sokrates delivers a highly poetical effusion 
respecting the partial inter-communion of the human soul with 
these eternal intellectual Realia. To contemplate them is the 
constant privilege of the gods ; to do so is also the aspiration of 
the immortal soul of man generally, in the pre-existent state, prior 
to incorporation with the human body ; though only in a few cases 
is such aspiration realized. Even those few human souls, that 
have succeeded in getting sight of the intellectual Ideas (essences 
without colour, figure, or tactile properties), lose all recollection 
of them when first entering into partnership with a human body ; 
but are enabled gradually to recall them, by combining repeated 
impressions and experience of their resemblances in the world of 
sense. The revival of these divine elements is an inspiration of 
the nature of madness — though it is a variety of madness as much 
better than uninspired human reason as other varieties are worse. 
The soul, becoming insensible to ordinary pursuits, contracts a 
passionate devotion to these Universal Ideas, and to that dialectic 
communion especially with some pregnant youthful mind, that 
brings them into clear separate contemplation, disengaged from 
the limits and confusion of sense. 

Here philosophy is represented as the special inspiration of a 
few, whose souls during the period of pre-existence have sufficiently 
caught sight of the Universal Ideas or Essences; so that these 






THE COGITABLE AGAINST THE SENSIBLE. 7 

last, though overlaid and buried when the soul is first plunged 
in a body, are yet revivable afterwards under favourable circum- 
stances, through their imperfect copies in the world of sense : 
especially by the sight of personal beauty in an ingenuous and 
aspiring youth, in which case the visible copy makes nearest 
approach to the perfection of the Universal Idea or Type. At the 
same time, Plato again presents to us the Cogitable Universals as 
the only objects of true cognition — the Sensible Particulars being 
objects merely of opinion. 

In the Ph^edojst, Sokrates advances the same doctrine, that 
the perceptions of sense are full of error and confusion, and can at 
best suggest nothing higher than opinion ; that true cognition can 
never be attained except when the Cogitant Mind disengages itself 
from the body and comes into direct contemplation of the Univer- 
sal Entia, objects eternal and always the same — The Self -beautiful, 
Self-good, Self -just, Self-great, Healthy, Strong, &c, all which 
objects are invisible, and can be apprehended only by the cogita- 
tion or intellect. It is this cogitable Universal that is alone 
real; Sensible Particulars are not real, nor lasting, nor trust- 
worthy. None but a few philosophers, however, can attain such 
pure mental energy during this life ; nor even they, fully and per- 
fectly. But they will attain it fully after death, (their souls being 
immortal), if their lives have been passed in sober philosophical 
training. And their souls enjoyed it before birth, during the 
period of pre-existence : having acquired, before junction with the 
body, the knowledge of these Universals, which are forgotten dur- 
ing childhood, but recaUed in the way of reminiscence, by sensible 
perceptions that make a distant approach to them. Thus, 
according to the Phsedon and some other dialogues, all learning 
is merely reminiscence ; the mind is brought back, by the laws of 
association, to the knowledge of Universal Bealities that it had 
possessed in its state of pre-existence. Particulars of sense partici- 
pate in these Universals to a certain extent, or resemble them 
imperfectly ; and they are therefore called by the same name. 

In the Eepublic, we have a repetition and copious illustration 
of this antithesis between the world of Universals or Cogitabilia, 
which are the only unchangeable realities, and the only objects of 
knowledge, — and the world of Sensible Particulars, which are 
transitory and confused shadows of these Universals, and are 
objects of opinion only. Full and Eeal Ens is knowable, Non- 
Ens is altogether unknowable; what is midway between the 
two is matter of opinion, and in such midway are the particulars 
of sense.* Eespecting these last, no truth is attainable; when- 
ever you affirm a proposition respecting any of them, you may 
with equal truth affirm the contrary at the same time. Nowhere 
is the contrast between the Universals or Eeal Ideas (among which 
the Idea of Good is the highest, predominant over all the rest), 
and the unreal Particulars, or Percepta of sense, more forcibly in- 

* Plato Republ. V. p. 477-478. 



8 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

sisted upon than in the Republic. Even the celestial bodies and 
their movements, being among these Percepta of sense, are ranked 
among phantoms interesting but useless to observe ; they are the 
best of all Percepta, but they fall very short of the perfection 
that the mental eye contemplates in the Ideal — in the true 
Figures and Numbers, in the Heal Velocity and the Eeal Slowness. 
In the simile commencing the seventh book of the Republic, Plato 
compares mankind to prisoners in a cave, chained in one particular 
attitude, so as to behold only an ever-varying multiplicity of 
shadows, projected, through the opening of the cave, upon the 
wall before them, by certain unseen Eealities behind. The 
philosopher is one among a few, who by training or inspiration, 
have been enabled to face about from this original attitude, and to 
contemplate with his mind the real unchangeable Universals, 
instead of having his eye fixed upon their particular manifesta- 
tions, at once shadowy and transient. By such mental revolution 
he comes round from the perceivable to the cogitable, from opinion 
to knowledge. 

The distinction between these two is farther argued in the 
elaborate dialogue called The^etetus, where Sokrates, trying to 
explain what Knowledge or Cognition is, refutes three proposed 
explanations ; and shows, to his own satisfaction, that it is not sen- 
sible perception, that it is not true opinion, that it is not true 
opinion coupled with rational explanation. But he confesses 
himself unable to show what Knowledge or Cognition is, though 
he continues to announce it as correlating with realities Cogitable 
and Universal only. * 

In the passages above noticed, and in many others besides, we 
find Plato drawing a capital distinction between Universals eter- 
nal and unchangeable — (each of them a Unit as well as a 
Universal), t which he affirms to be the only Eeal Entia — and 
Particulars transient and variable, which are not Entia at all, but 
are always coming or going ; the Universals being objects of 
cogitation and of a psychological fact called Cognition, which he 
declares to be infallible; and the Particulars being objects of 
sense, and of another psychological fact radically different, called 
Opinion, which he pronounces to be fallible and misleading. 
Plato holds, moreover, that the Particulars, though generically 
distinct and separate from the Universals, have nevertheless a 
certain communion or participation with them, by virtue of which 
they become half-existent and half-cognizable, but never attain 
to full reality or cognizability. 

This is the first statement of the theory of complete and un- 

* Plato Thesetet., p. 173, 176, 186. Grote's Plato, vol. II. ch. 26, 
p. 370-395. 

f Plato Philebus, p. 15, A — B, evadwv fiovddac, fiiav eicaffTTjv ovaav del 
rrjv dvrrjv, &c, Kepublic X., p. 596, A. The phrase of Milton— Unus et 
Uni versus — expresses this idea : — 

' Sed quamlibet natura sit communior, 
Tarnen scorsus extat ad modum unius/ &c. 






FIRST STATEMENT OF REALISM. 9 

qualified Kealism, which came to be known in the Middle Ages 
under the phrase Universalia ante rem or extra rem, and to be 
distinguished from the two counter theories Universalia in re 
(Aristotelian), and Universalia post rem (Nominalism). Indeed, the 
Platonic theory goes even farther than the phrase Universalia ante 
rem, which recognizes the particular as a reality, though posterior 
and derivative, for Plato attenuates it into phantom and 
shadow. The problem was now clearly set out in philosophy — 
What are the objects correlating with Universal terms, and with 
Particular terms ? What is the relation between the two ? Plato 
first gave to the world the solution called Eealism, which lasted 
so long after his time. We shall presently find Aristotle taking 
issue with him on both the affirmations included in his theory. 

But though Plato first introduced this theory into philosophy, 
he was neither blind to the objections against it, nor disposed to 
conceal them. His mind was at once poetically constructive and 
dialectically destructive ; to both these impulses the theory fur- 
nished ample scope, while the form of his compositions (separate 
dialogues, with no mention of his own name) rendered it easy to 
give expression either to one or the other. Before Aristotle 
arose to take issue with him, we shall find him taking issue with 
himself, especially in the dialogues called Sophistes and Parmenides, 
not to mention the Philebus, wherein he breaks down the unity 
even of his sovereign Idea, which in the Eepublic governs the 
Cogitable World — the Idea of Good.* 

Both in the Sophistes and in the Parmenides, the leading dis- 
putant introduced by Plato is not Sokrates, but Parmenides and 
another person (unnamed) of the Eleatic school. In both dialogues 
objections are taken against the Realistic theory elsewhere pro- 
pounded by Plato, though the objections adduced in the one are 
quite distinct from those noticed in the other. In the Sophistes, 
the Eleatic reasoner impugns successfully the theories of two 
classes of philosophers, one the opposite of the other ; first, the 
Materialists, who recognized no Entia except the Percejpta of 
Sense ; next, the Realistic Idealists, who refused to recognize 
these last as real Entia, or as anything more than transient and 
mutable Generata or Fientia, while they confined the title of 
Entia to the Forms, cogitable, incorporeal, eternal, immutable, 
neither acting on anything, nor acted upon by anything. These 
persons are called in the Sophistes ' Friends of Forms,' and their 
theory is exactly what we have already cited out of so many 
other dialogues of Plato, drawing the marked line of separation 
between Entia and Fientia ; between the Immutable, which alone 
is real and cognizable, and the Mutable, neither real nor cogniz- 
able. The Eleate in the Sophistes controverts this Platonic 
theory, and maintains — that among the Universal Entia there are 
included items mutable as well as immutable ; that both are real 

: 

* Plato Philebus, p. 65-66 ; see Grote's Plato, vol. II. ch. 30, p. 

584-585. 



10 APPENDIX— NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

and both cognizable ; that Non-Ens (instead of being set in glar- 
ing contrast with Ens, as the totally incogitable against the 
infallibly cognizable)* is one among the multiplicity of Real 
Forms, meaning only what is different from Ens, and therefore 
cognizable not less than Ens ; that Percepta and Cogitata are alike 
real, yet both only relatively real, correlating with minds per- 
cipient and cogitant. Thus, the reasoning in the Sophistes, while 
it sets aside the doctrine of Universalia ante rem, does not mark 
out any other relation between Universals and Particulars (neither 
in re nor post rem). It discusses chiefly the intercommunion or 
reciprocal exclusion of Universals with respect to each other; and, 
upon this point, far from representing them as Objects of infal- 
lible Cognition as contrasted with Opinion, it enrolls both Opinion 
and Discourse among the Universals themselves, and declares 
both of them to be readily combinable with Non-Ens and False- 
hood. So that we have here error and fallibility recognized in 
the region of Universals, as well as in that of Particulars. 

But it is principally in the dialogue Parmenides that Plato 
discusses with dialectical acuteness the relation of Universals to 
their Particulars ; putting aside the intercommunion (affirmed in 
the Sophistes) or reciprocal exclusion between one Universal and 
another, as an hypothesis at least supremely difficult to vindi- 
cate, if at all admissible. t In the dialogue, Sokrates is in- 
troduced in the unusual character of a youthful and ardent 
aspirant in philosophy, defending the Platonic theory of Ideas, as 
we have seen it proclaimed in the Republic and in Timaeus. The 
veteran Parmenides appears as the opponent to cross-examine 
him; and not only impugns the theory by several interrogatories 
which Sokrates cannot answer, but also intimates that there 
remain behind other objections equally serious requiring answer. 
Yet at the same time he declares that unless the theory be ad- 
mitted, and unless Universalia ante rem can be sustained as existent, 
there is no trustworthy cognition attainable, nor any end to be 
served by philosophical debate. Moreover, Parmenides warns 
Sokrates that before he can acquire a mental condition competent 
to defend the theory, he must go through numerous preliminary 
dialectical exercises ; following out both the affirmative and the 
negative hypotheses in respect to a great variety of Universalia 
severally. To illustrate the course prescribed, Parmenides gives 
a long specimen of this dialectic in handling his own doctrine of 
Ens Unum, He takes first the hypothesis Si Unum Est — next, 
the hypothesis Si Unum non est ; and he deduces from each, by 
ingenious subtleties, double and contradictory conclusions. These 
he sums up at the end, challenging Sokrates to solve the puzzles 
before affirming his thesis. 

Apart from these antinomies at the close of the dialogue, the 

* Plato Republic, Y. 9 478-479. 

t Plato Parmenid. p. 129 E ; with Stallbaum's Prolegomena to that 
Dialogue, p. 38-42. 



plato's objections to his own theory. 11 

cross-examination of Sokrates by Parmenides, in the middle of it, 
brings out forcibly against the Realistic theory objections such as 
those urged against it by the Nominalists of the Middle Agres. In 
the first place, we find that Plato conceived the theory itself differ- 
ently from Porphyry and the philosophers that wrote subse- 
quently to the Peripatetic criticism. Porphyry and his successors 
put the question. Whether Genera and Species had a separate 
existence, apart from the individuals composing them ? Now, the 
world of Forms (the Cogitable or Ideal world as opposed to the 
Sensible), is not here conceived by Plato as peopled in the first 
instance by Genera and Species. Its first tenants are attributes, 
and attributes distinctly relative — Likeness, One and Many, Jus- 
tice, Beauty, Goodness, &c. Sokrates, being asked by Parmenides 
whether he admits Forms corresponding with these names, 
answers unhesitatingly in the affirmative. He is next asked 
whether he admits Forms corresponding to the names Man, Fire, 
"Water, &c. , and instead of replying in the affirmative, intimates 
that he does not feel sure. Lastly, the question is put whether 
there are Forms corresponding to the names of mean objects — 
mud, hair, dirt, &c. At first he answers emphatically in the 
negative, and treats the affirmative as preposterous ; there exists 
no cogitable hair, &c, but only the object of sense that we so 
denominate. Yet, on second thoughts, he is not without misgiving 
that there maybe Forms even of these; though the supposition 
is so repulsive to him that he shakes it off as much as he can. 
Upon this last expression of sentiment Parmenides comments, 
ascribing it to the juvenility of Sokrates, and intimating that 
when Sokrates has become more deeply imbued with philosophy, 
he will cease to set aside any of these objects as unworthy. 

Here we see that in the theory of Realism as conceived by 
Sokrates, the Self-Existent Universals are not Genera and Species 
as such, but Attributes (not Second Substances or Essences, but 
Accidents or Attributes, e.g., Quality, Quantity, Relation, &c, to 
use the language afterwards introduced by the Aristotelian Cate- 
gories) ; that no Genera or Species are admitted except with hesi- 
tation; and that the mean and undignified among them are 
scarcely admissible at all. This sentiment of dignity, associated 
with the Universalia ante rem, and the emotional necessity for 
tracing back particulars to an august and respected origin — is to 
be noted as a marked and lasting feature of the Realistic creed ; 
and it even passed on to the Universalia in re as afterwards 
affirmed by Aristotle. Parmenides here takes exception to it 
(and so does Plato elsewhere*) as inconsistent with faithful ad- 
herence to scientific analogy. 

Parmenides then proceeds (interrogating Sokrates) first to 
state what the Eealistic theory is (Universals apart from Parti- 
culars — Particulars apart from Universals, yet having some parti- 
cipation in them, and named after them), next to bring out the 

* Plato Sophist. 227 A. Politikus, p. 266 D. 



12 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

difficulties attaching to it. The Universal or Form (he argues) 
cannot be entire in each of its many separate particulars ; nor yet 
is it divisible, so that a part can be in one particular, and a part 
in another. For take the Forms Great, Equal, Small-, Equal 
magnitudes are equal because they partake in the Form of equa- 
lity. But how can a part of the Form Equality, less than the 
whole Form, cause the magnitudes to be equal ? How can the 
Form Smallness have any parts less than itself, or how can it be 
greater than anything ? 

The Form cannot be divided, nor can it co-exist undivided in 
each separate particular ; accordingly, particulars can have no par- 
ticipation in it at all. 

Again, you assume a Form of Greatness, because you see many 
particular objects, each of which appears to you great ; this being 
the point of resemblance between them. But if you compare the 
Form of Greatness with any or all of the particular great objects, 
you will perceive a resemblance between them ; this will require 
you to assume a higher Form, and so on upward, without limit. 

Sokrates, thus embarrassed, starts the hypothesis that perhaps 
each of these Forms may be a cogitation, and nothing more, 
existing only within the mind. How ? rejoins Parmenides. Can 
there be a cogitation of nothing at all ? Must not each cogitation 
have a real cogitatum correlating with it — in this case, the one 
Form that is identical throughout many particulars ? If you say 
that particulars partake in the Form, and that each Form is 
nothing but a cogitation, does not this imply that each particular 
is itself cogitant ? 

Again, Sokrates urges that the Forms are constant, unalter- 
able, stationary in nature ; that particulars resemble them, and 
participate in them only so far as to resemble them. But (rejoins 
Parmenides) if particulars resemble the Form, the Form must 
resemble them ; accordingly, you must admit another and higher 
Form, as the point of resemblance between the Form and its par- 
ticulars ; and so on, upwards. 

And farther (continues Parmenides), even admitting these Uni- 
versal Forms as self -existent, how can we know anything about 
them ? Forms can correlate only with Forms, Particulars only 
with Particulars. Thus, if I, an individual man, am master, I 
correlate with another individual man, who is my servant, and he 
on his side with me. But the Form of mastership, the universal 
self-existent master, must correlate with the Form of servantship, 
the universal servant. The correlation does not subsist between 
members of the two different worlds, but between different mem- 
bers of the same world respectively. Thus the Form of Cognition 
correlates with the Form of Truth ; and the Form of each variety 
of Cognition, with the Form of the corresponding variety of 
Truth. But we, as individual subjects, do not possess in ourselves 
the Form of Cognition; our Cognition is our own, correlating 
with such truth as belongs to it and to ourselves. Our Cognition 
cannot reach to the Form of Truth, nor therefore to any other 



ARISTOTLE. 13 

Form; we can know nothing of the Self -good, Self -beautiful, 
Self -just, &c, even supposing such Forms to exist. 

These acute and subtle arguments are nowhere answered by- 
Plato. They remain as unsolved difficulties, embarrassing the 
Realistic theory ; they are reinforced by farther difficulties no less 
grave, included in the dialectic Antinomies of Parmenides at the 
close of the dialogue, and by an unknown number of others indi- 
cated as producible, though not actually produced. Yet still 
Plato, with full consciousness of these difficulties, asserts unequivo- 
cally, that unless the Eealistic theory can be sustained, philoso- 
phical research is fruitless, and truth cannot be reached. We see 
thus that the author of the theory has also left on record some of 
the most forcible arguments against it. It appears from Aristotle 
(though we do not learn the fact from the Platonic dialogues), 
that Plato, in his later years, symbolized the Ideas or Forms under 
the denomination of Ideal Numbers, generated by implication of 
The One with what he called The Great and Little, or the Indeter- 
minate Dyad. This last, however, is not the programme wherein 
the Realistic theory stands opposed to Nominalism. 

But the dialogue Parmenides, though full of acuteness on the 
negative side, not only furnishes no counter-theory, but asserts 
continued allegiance to the Realistic theory, which passed as 
Plato's doctrine to his successors. To impugn, forcibly and even 
unanswerably, a theory at once so sweeping and so little fortified 
by positive reasons, was what many dialecticians of the age could 
do. But to do this, and at the same time to construct a counter- 
theory, was a task requiring higher powers of mind. One, how- 
ever, of Plato's disciples and successors was foond adequate to the 
task — Aristotle . 

The Realistic Ontology of Plato is founded (as Aristotle him- 
self remarks) upon mistrust and contempt of perception of sense, as 
bearing entirely on the flux of particulars, which never stand still 
so as to become objects of knowledge. All reality, and all cog- 
noscibility, were supposed to reside in the separate world of 
Cogitable Universals f extra rem or ante rem J, of which, in some 
confused manner, particulars were supposed to partake. The 
Universal, apart from its particulars, was clearly and fully 
knowable, furnishing propositions constantly and infallibly true : 
the Universal, as manifested in its particulars, was never fully 
knowable, nor could ever become the subject of propositions, 
except such as were sometimes true and sometimes false. 

Against this separation of the Universal from its Particulars, 
Aristotle entered a strong protest : as well as against the sub- 
sidiary hypothesis of a participation of the latter in the former : 
which participation, when the two had been declared separate, 
appeared to him not only untenable and uncertified, but unin- 
telligible. His arguments are interesting, as being among the 
earliest objections known to us against Realism. 

1. Realism is a useless multiplication of existences, serving 
no purpose. Wherever a number of particulars — be they sub- 



u 



APPENDIX— NOMINALISM AND EEALISM, 



stances eternal or perishable — be they substances, qualities, or 
relations — bear the same name, and thus have a Universal in re 
predicable of them in common — in every such case Plato assumes 
a Universal extra rem, or a separate self-existent Form ; which 
explains nothing, and merely doubles the total to be summed up.* 
2. Plato's arguments in support of Eealism are either incon- 
clusive, or prove too much. Wherever there is cognition (he 
argues), there must exist an eternal and unchangeable object of 
cognition, apart from particulars, which are changeable and 
perishable. No, replies Aristotle : cognition does not require the 
Universalia extra rem : for the Universalia in re, the constant pre- 
dicate of all the particulars, is sufficient as an object of cognition. 
Moreover, if the argument were admitted, it would prove that 
there existed separate Forms or Universals of mere negations — 
for many of the constant predicates are altogether negative. 
Again, if Self-Existent Universals are to be assumed corre- 
sponding to all our cogitations, we must assume Universals of 
extinct particulars, and even of fictitious particulars, such as Hip- 
pocentaurs or Chimeras : for of these, too, we have phantasms or 
concepts in our minds. f 

3. The most subtle disputants on this matter include Relata, 
among the Universals Ideas or Forms. This is absurd, because 
these do not constitute any Genus by themselves. These dis- 
putants have also urged against the Eealistic theory that powerful 
and unsolved objection, entitled The Third Man.% 

4. The supporters of these Self-Existent Universals trace them 
to two principia — The One, and the Indeterminate Dyad ; which 
they affirm to be prior in existence even to the Universals them- 
selves. But this can never be granted : for in the first place, the 
Idea of Number must be logically prior to the Idea of the Dyad ; 
but the Idea of Number is relative, and the Eelative can never be 
prior to the Absolute or Self -Existent. 

5. If we grant that wherever there is one constant predicate 
belonging to many particulars, or wherever there is stable and 
trustworthy cognition, in all such cases a Self-Existent Universal 
correlate extra rem is to be assumed, we shall find that this 
applies not merely to Substances or Essences, but also to the 
other Categories — Quality, Quantity, Eelation, &c. But hereby 
we exclude the possibility of participation in them by Particulars : 



* Aristot. Metaph. A. 990, a. 34 ; M. 1079, a. 2. 
first appearance of the argument that William 



Here we have the 
of Ockham, the 
Nominalist, put in the foreground of his case against Eealism — 'Entia 
non sunt multiplicanda prseter necessitatem,' &c. 

+ Aristot. Metaphys. A. 990, b. 14; Scholia, p. 565, b. 10, Brandit. 
. X Aristot. Metaph. A. 990, b. 15, o\ atcpiPsvrspoL twv \6yuv. Both the 
points here noticed appear in the Parmenides of Plato. 

The objection called The Third Man, is expressed by saying, that if 
there be a Form of man, resembling individual men, you must farther 
postulate some higher Form, marking the point of resemblance between 
the two : and so on higher, without end. 






aristotle's criticism of plato. 15 

since from such participation the Particular derives its Substance 
or Essence alone, not its accidental predicates. Thus the Self- 
Existent Universal Dyad is eternal : but a particular pair, which 
derives its essential property of doubleness from partaking in this 
Universal Dyad, does not at the same time partake of eternity, 
unless by accident. Accordingly, there are no Universal Ideas, 
except of Substances or Essences : the common name, when 
applied to the world of sense and to that of cogitation, signifies 
the same thing — substance or essence. It is unmeaning to talk 
of anything else as signified— any other predicate common to 
many. Well then, if the Form of the Universals, and the Form 
of those particulars that participate in the Universals, be the 
same, we shall have something common to both the one and the 
other, so that the objection called The Third Man will become 
applicable, and a higher Form must be postulated. But if the 
Form of the Universals and the Form of the participating parti- 
culars, be not identical, then the same name, as signifying both, 
will be used equivocally ; just as if you applied the same denomi- 
nation Man to Kallias and to a piece of wood, without any 
common property to warrant it. 

6. But the greatest difficulty of all is to understand how these 
Cogitable Universals, not being causes of any change or move- 
ment, contribute in any way to the objects of sense, either to the 
eternal or to the perishable : or how they assist us towards the 
knowledge thereof, being not in them, and therefore not their 
substance or essence : or how they stand in any real relation to 
their participants, being not immanent therein. Particulars cer- 
tainly do not proceed from these Universals, in any intelligible 
sense. To say that the Universals are archetypes, and that par- 
ticulars partake in them, is unmeaning, and mere poetic metaphor. 
For where is the working force to mould them in conformity with 
the Universals ? Any one thing may he like, or may become like, to 
any other particular thing, by accident ; or without any regular 
antecedent cause to produce such assimilation. The same particular 
substance, moreover, will have not one Universal archetype only, 
but several. Thus, the same individual man will have not only the 
Self -animal and the Self-biped, but also the Self-man, as Archetype. 
Then again, there will be Universal Archetypes, not merely for par- 
ticular sensible objects, but also for Universals themselves : thus the 
Genus will be an archetype for its various species : so that the same 
which is now archetype, will, under other circumstances, be copy. 

7. Furthermore, it seems impossible that what is Substance or 
Essence can be separate from that whereof it is the Substance or 
Essence. How then can the Universals, if they be the Essences 
of Sensible things, have any existence apart from those Sensible 
things ? Plato tells us in the Phaedon, that the Forms or Uni- 
versals are the causes why particulars both exist at all, and come 
into such or such modes of existence. But even if we assume 
Universals as existing, still the Particulars participant therein 
will not come into being, unless there be some efficient cause to 









1G APPENDIX— NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

produce movement; moreover, many other things come into 
being, though there be no Universals correlating therewith, e.g., 
a house, or a ring. The same causes that were sufficient to bring 
these last into being, will be sufficient to bring all particulars into 
being, without assuming any Universals extra rem at all. 

8. Again, if the Universals or Forms are Numbers, how can 
they ever be causes ? Even if we suppose Particulars to be Num- 
bers also, how can one set of Numbers be causes to the others ? 
There can be no such causal influence, even if one set be eternal, 
and the other perishable.* 

Out of the many objections raised by Aristotle against Plato, 
we have selected such as bore principally upon the theory of 
Eealism : that is, upon the theory of Universalia ante rem or extra 
rem — self-existent, archetypal, cogitable substances, in which Par- 
ticulars faintly participated. The objections are not superior in 
acuteness, and they are decidedly inferior, in clearness of enunci- 
ation, to those that Plato himself produces in the Parmenides. 
Moreover, several of them are founded upon Aristotle's point of 
view, and would have failed to convince Plato. The great merit of 
Aristotle is, that he went beyond the negative of the Parmenides, 
asserted this new point of view of his own, and formulated it into 
a counter-theory. He rejected altogether the separate and ex- 
clusive reality which Plato had claimed for his Absolutes of the 
Cogitable world, as well as the derivative and unreal semblance 
that alone Plato accorded to the sensible world. Without 
denying the distinction of the two, as conceivable and nameable, 
he maintained that truth and cognition required that they should 
be looked at in implication with each other. And he went even 
a step farther, in antithesis to Plato, by reversing the order of the 
two. Instead of considering the Cogitable Universals alone as real 
and complete in themselves, and the Sensible Particulars as degene- 
rate and confused semblances of them, he placed complete reality 
in the sensible particulars alone, + and treated the cogitable uni- 
versals as contributory appendages thereto ; some being essential, 

* Aristot. Metaph., A. 991, b. 13. Several other objections are made 
by Aristotle against that variety of the Platonic theory whereby the 
Ideas were commuted into Ideal numbers. These objections do not be- 
long to the controversy of Eealism against Nominalism. 

+ Aristotle takes pains to vindicate against both Plato and the Hera- 
cleiteans the dignity of the Sensible World. They that depreciate sen- 
sible objects as perpetually changing, unstable, and unknowable, make 
the mistake (he observes) of confining their attention to the sublunary 
interior of the Cosmos, where, indeed, generation and destruction largely 
prevail. But this is only a small portion of the entire Cosmos. In the 
largest portion — the visible, celestial, superlunary regions — there is no 
generation or destruction at all, nothing but permanence and uniformity. 
In appreciating the sensible world (Aristotle says), philosophers ought to 
pardon the shortcomings of the smaller portion on account of the excel- 
lencies of the larger; and not condemn both together on account of the 
smaller— (Metaphys., T. 1010, a. 32), 



IMPROVED ONTOLOGY OF ARISTOTLE. 17 

others non-essential, but all of them relative, and none of them 
independent integers. His philosophy was a complete revolution 
as compared with Parmenides and Plato ; a revolution, too, the 
more calculated to last, because he embodied it in an elaborate and 
original theory of Logic, Metaphysics, and Ontology. He was 
the first philosopher that, besides recognizing the equivocal cha- 
racter of those general terms whereon speculative debate chiefly 
turns, endeavoured methodically to set out and compare the dif- 
ferent meanings of each term, and their relations to each other. 

However much the Ontology of Aristotle may fail to satisfy 
modern exigencies, still, as compared with the Platonic Realism, 
it was a considerable improvement. Instead of adopting Ens 
as a self- explaining term, contrasted with the Generated and 
Perishable (the doctrine of Plato in the Republic, Phasdon, and 
Timaeus), he. discriminates several distinct meanings of Ens ; a 
discrimination not always usefully pursued, but tending in the 
main towards a better theory. The distinction between Ens 
potential, and Ens actual, does not belong directly to the question 
between Realism and Nominalism, yet it is a portion of that 
philosophical revolution wrought by Aristotle against Plato — 
displacement of the seat of reality, and transfer of it from the 
Cogitable Universal to the Sensible Particular. The direct enun- 
ciation of this change is contained in his distinction of Ens into 
Fundamental and Concomitant (avfifiefiriKos), and his still greater 
refinement on the same principle by enumerating the ten varieties 
of Ens called Categories or Predicaments.* He will not allow Ens 
(nor Unum) to be a Genus, partible into Species ; he recognizes it 
only as a word of many analogous meanings, one of them 'princi- 
pal and fundamental, the rest derivative and subordinate thereto, 
each in its own manner. Aristotle thus establishes a graduated 
scale of Entia, each having its own value and position, and its 
own mode of connexion with the common centre. That common 
centre, Aristotle declared to be of necessity some individual object 
— Hoc Aliquid, That Man, This Horse, &c. This was the common 
Subject, to which all the other Entia belonged as predicates, and 
without which none of them had any reality. We here fall into 
the language of Logic, the first theory of which we owe to 
Aristotle. His ontological classification was adapted to that 
theory. 

As we are here concerned only with the different ways of con- 
ceiving the relation between the Particular and the Universal, we 
are not called on to criticise the well known decuple enumeration 
of Categories or Predicaments given by Aristotle, both in his 
Treatise called by that name and elsewhere. For our purpose it 

* In enumerating the ten Categories, Aristotle takes his departure 
from the proposition — Homo currit — Homo vincit. He assumes a particu- 
lar individual as Subject: and he distributes, under ten general heads, all 
the information that can be asked or given about that Subject — all the 
predicates that can be affirmed or denied thereof. 
49 



18 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

is enough, to point out that the particular sensible Hoc Aliquid is 
declared to be the ultimate subject, to which all Universals attach, 
as determinants or accompaniments ; and that if this condition be 
wanting, the unattached Universal cannot rank among complete 
Entia. The Subject or First Substance, which can never become 
a predicate, is established as the indispensable ultimate subject for 
all predicates ; if that disappears, all predicates disappear along 
with it. The Particular thus becomes the keystone of the arch 
whereon all Universals rest. Aristotle is indeed careful to 
point out a gradation in these predicates ; some are essential to 
the subject, and thus approach so near to the First Substance that 
he calls them Second Substances ; others, and the most in number, 
are not thus essential ; these last are Concomitants or Accidents, 
and some of them fall so much short of complete Entity that he 

These ten K<xTr}yopicu — ykvri tujv Karrjyopi&v, sometimes simply tcl yevrj 
— ^XVH' aTa T & v icaTrjyopiujv— jfrcedicamenta in Latin — are as follows ; — 

1. Qvoia — Substantia— Substance. 

2. Hoabv — Quantum — Quantity. 

3. IIolov — Quale — Quality. 

4. Ilpog Ti — Ad aliquid — Relation. 

5. Hov — TIM — Location. 

6. II org — Quando — Period of Time. 

7. KeXaOai — Jacere — Attitude, Posture. 

8. ,; E%av — Habere — Equipment, Appurtenances, Property. 

9. Tloielv — Facer e— Active occupation. 
10. lidax^iv — Pati — Passive occupation. 

1. The first Category, Substance, is distributed into Prima and 
Secunda. Prima, which is Substance par excellence, can only serve as a 
Subject in propositions, and can never be a Predicate. It is indispens- 
able as a substratum for predicates ; though alone and without some of 
them, it is a mere unmeaning term. Substantia Secunda describes the 
Species or Genus that includes the First. Respecting an unknown 
Subject — Kallias — you ask, What is Kallias ? Answer is made by 
declaring the Second Substance, the Species he belongs to — Kallias is 
a man. 

2. Quantum — How large is he ? To this question answer is made 
under the same Category — He is six feet high, as thin as Kinesias, &c. 

3. Quale — What manner of man is he ? Answer the third Category 
— He is fair, flat-nosed, muscular, &c. 

4. Pelata— What are the relations that he stands in ? He is father, 
master, director, &c. 

5. TJbi — Where is he ? In his house, in the market-place, &c. 

6. Quando — Of what point of time do you speak ? Yesterday, last 
year, now, &c. 

7. Jacere — In what attitude or posture is he ? He is lying down, 
standing upright, kneeling, &c. 

8. Habere — What has he in the way of clothing, equipment, arms, 
property ? He has boots, sword and shield, an axe, a house, &c. 

9. Facere — In what is he actively occupied ? He is speaking, writing, 
fencing, cutting wood, &c. 

10. Pati — In what is he passively occupied ? He is being beaten, re- 
proved, rubbed, having his hair cut, &c. 



THE CATEGORIES. 19 

describes them as near to Non-Entia.* But all of them, essential 
or unessential, are alike constituents or appendages of the First 
Substance or Particular Subject, and have no reality in any other 
character. 

We thus have the counter-theory of Aristotle against the 
Platonic Eealism. Instead of separate Universal substances, con- 
taining in themselves full reality, and forfeiting much of that 
reality when they faded down into the shadowy copies called Par- 
ticulars, he inverts the Platonic order, announces full reality to be 
the privilege of the Particular Sensible, and confines the function 
of the Universal to that of a Predicate, in or along with the Par- 
ticular. There is no doctrine that he protests against more fre- 
quently, than the ascribing of separate reality to the Universal. 
The tendency to do this, he signalizes as a natural but unfortunate 

Such is the list of Categories, or decuple classification of predicates, 
drawn up by Aristotle, seemingly from the comparison of many different 
propositions. He himself says, that there are various predicates that 
might be referred to more than one of the several heads ; and he does 
not consider this as an objection to the classification. The fourth class — 
Uelata— ought to be considered as including them all ; the first Category is 
the common and indispensable Correlate to all the others. Aristotle's con- 
ception of relation is too narrow, and tied down by grammatical conjunc- 
tions of words. Yet it must be said, that the objections to his classification 
on this ground, are applicable also to the improved classifications of modern 
times, which dismiss the six last heads, and retain only the four first — 
Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation, Of these four, the three first 
properly rank under the more general head of Relata. 

Among all the teu heads of the Aristotelian scheme, the two that 
have been usually considered as most incongruous, and least entitled to 
their places, are, No. 7 and 8 — Jacere and Habere. They are doubtless 
peculiarities ; and they may fairly be considered as revealing the first pro- 
jection of the scheme in Aristotle's mind. He began by conceiving an 
individual man as the Subject, and he tried to classify the various pre- 
dicates applicable in reply to questions respecting the same. Now, in 
this point of view, the seventh and eighth Categories will be found im- 
portant ; referring to facts constantly varying, and often desirable to 
know ; moreover not fit to rank under any of the other general heads, 
except under Relata, which comprises them as well as all the rest. But 
Aristotle afterwards proceeded to stretch the application of the scheme, 
so as to comprehend philosophy generally, and other subjects of Predica- 
tion besides the individual man. Here undoubtedly the seventh and 
eighth heads appear narrow and trivial. Aristotle probably would never 
have introduced them, had such enlarged purpose been present to his 
mind from the beginning. Probably, too, he was not insensible to the 
perfection of the number Ten. 

* Aristot. Metaph., E. 1026, b. 21. ^aiverai yap to (7Vfil3ej3rjKbg lyyvg 

TL TOV flT) OVTOQ. 

There cannot be a stronger illustration of the difference between the 
Platonic and the Aristotelian point of view, than the fact that Plato 
applies the same designation to all particular objects of sense — that 
they are only mid-way between Entia and Non-Entia. (Republic, v. 
478-479.) 





20 APPENDIX— NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

illusion, lessening the beneficial efficacy of universal demonstrative 
reasoning.* And lie declares it to be a corollary, from this view 
of the Particular as indispensable subject, along with the Univer- 
sal as its predicate : — That the first principles of demonstration 
in all the separate theoretical sciences, must be obtained by in- 
duction from particulars : first by impressions of sense preserved 
in the memory ; then by multiplied remembrances enlarged into 
one experience ; lastly, by many experiences generalized into one 
principle by the Nous.t 

While Aristotle thus declares Induction to be the source from 
whence demonstration in these separate sciences draws its first 
principles, we must at the same time acknowledge that his manner 
of treating science is not always conformable to this declaration, 
and that he often seems to forget Induction altogether. This is 
the case not only in his First Philosophy, or Metaphysics, but also 
in his Physics. He there professes to trace out what he calls 
beginnings, causes, elements, &c, and he analyzes most of the 
highest generalities. Yet still these analytical enquiries (whatever 
be their value) are usually, if not always, kept in subordination to 
the counter-theory that he had set up against the Platonic 
Eealism. Complete reality resides (he constantly repeats) only in 
the particular sensible substances and sensible facts or movements 
that compose the aggregate Cosmos; which is not generated, 
but eternal, both as to substance and as to movement. If these 
sensible substances disappear, nothing remains. The beginnings 
and causes exist only relatively to these particulars. Form, 
Matter, Privation, are not real Beings, antecedent to the Cosmos, 
and pre- existent generators of the substances constituting the 
Cosmos ; they are logical fragments or factors, obtained by mental 
analysis and comparison, assisting to methodize our philosophical 
point of view or conception of those substances ; but incapable of 
being understood, and having no value of their own apart from 
the substances. Some such logical analysis (that of Aristotle or 
some other) is an indispensable condition even of the most strictly 
inductive philosophy. 

There are some portions of the writings of Aristotle (especially 
the third book Be Animd and the twelfth book of the Metaphysica) 
where he appears to lose sight of the limit here indicated ; but 
with few exceptions, we find him constantly remembering, and 
often repeating, the great truth formulated in his Categories — that 
full or substantive reality resides only in the Hoc Aliquid, with its 
predicates implicated with it — and that even the highest of these 
predicates (Second Substances) have no reality apart from some 
one of their particulars. We must recollect that though Aristotle 

* Aristot. Analyt. Poster., I., p. 85, a. 31, b. 19. 

f See the concluding chapter of the Analytica Posteriora. 

A similar doctrine is stated by Piato in the Phsedon (p. 96 B.), as one 
among the intellectual phases that Sokrates had passed through in the 
course of his life, without continuing in them. 



REALISM CONTESTED UNDER THE FIRST CATEGORY. 21 

denies to the predicates a separate reality, lie recognizes in them 
an adjective reality, as accompaniments and determinants : he con- 
templates all the ten Categories as distinct varieties of existence.* 
This is sufficient as a basis for abstraction, whereby we can name 
them and reason upon them as distinct objects of thought or 
points of view, although none of them come into reality except as 
implicated with a sensible particular. Of such reasoning Aristotle's 
First Philosophy chiefly consists ; and he introduces peculiar 
phrases to describe this distinction of reason, between two differ- 
ent points of view, where the real object spoken of is one 
and the same. The frequency of the occasions taken to point 
out that distinction, mark his anxiety to keep the First Philo- 
sophy in harmony with the theory of reality announced in his 
Categories. 

The Categories of Aristotle appear to have become more widely 
known than any other part of his philosophy. They were much dis- 
cussed by the sects coming after him ; and even when not adopted, 
were present to speculative minds as a scheme to be amended, f 
Most of the arguments turned upon the nine later Categories ; 
it was debated whether these were properly enumerated and 
discriminated, and whether the enumeration as a whole was 
exhaustive. 

With these details, however, the question between Eealism and 
its counter-theory (whether Conceptualism or Nominalism) is not 
materially concerned. The standard against Eealism was raised by 
Aristotle in the First Category, when he proclaimed the Hoc Aliquid 
to be the only complete Ens, and the Universal to exist only along 
with it as a predicate, being nothing in itself apart ; and when he 
enumerated Quality as one among the predicates, and nothing be- 
yond. In the Platonic Eealism (Phsedon, Timseus, Parmenides) 
what Aristotle called Quality was the highest and most incon- 
testable among all Substances — the Good, the Beautiful, the 
Just, &c. ; what Aristotle called Second Substance was also Sub- 
stance in the Platonic Eealism, though not so incontestably ; 
but what Aristotle called First Substance was in the Platonic 
Bealism no Substance at all, but only one among a multi- 
tude of confused and transient shadows. It is in the First and 
Third Categories that the capital antithesis of Aristotle against 
the Platonic Eealism is contained. As far as that antithesis is 
concerned, it matters little whether the aggregate of predicates 
be subdivided under nine general heads (Categories) or under 
three. 

In the century succeeding Aristotle, the Stoic philosophers 
altered his Categories, and drew up a new list of their own, con- 
taining only four distinct heads instead of ten. We have no 
record or explanation of the Stoic Categories from any of their 

* Aristot. Metaphys., A. 1017, a. 24. baa\^Q yap Xsyerai (tcl axW aTa 
rifg KarrjyopiaQ) TOGavrax&Q to ilvai arjiia'ivu. 

f This is the just remark of Trendelenburg — Kategorienlehre— -p. 217. 



22 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

authors ; so that we are compelled to accept the list on secondary 
authority, from the comments of critics, mostly opponents. But, 
as far as we can make out, they retained in their First Category 
the capital feature of Aristotle's First Category ; the primacy of 
the First Substance or Hoc Aliquid, and its exclusive privilege of 
imparting reality to all the other Categories. Indeed, the Stoics 
seem not only to have retained this characteristic, but to have 
exaggerated it. They did not recognize so close an approach of 
the Universal to the Particular, as is implied by giving to it a 
second place in the same Category, and calling it Second Sub- 
stance. The First Category of the Stoics (Something or Subject) 
included only particular substances ; all Universals were by them 
ranked in the other Categories, being regarded as negations of 
substances, and designated by the term Non- Somethings — Non- 
Substances. * 

The Neo-Platonist Plotinus, in the third century after the 
Christian era, agreed with the Stoics (though looking from the 
opposite point of view) in disapproving Aristotle's arrangement of 
Second Substance in the same Category with First Substance. t 
He criticises at some length both the Aristotelian list of Cate- 
gories, and the Stoic list ; but he falls back into the Platonic and 
even the Parmenidean point of view. His capital distinction is 
between Cogitables and Sensibles. The Cogitabilia are in his 
view the most real ; (i.e. the Aristotelian Second Substance is 
more real than the First;) among them the highest, Unum or 
Bonum, is the grand fountain and sovereign of all the rest. 
Plotinus thus departed altogether from the Aristotelian Cate- 
gories, and revived the Platonic or Parmenidean Eealism ; yet 
not without some Aristotelian modifications. But it is remarkable 
that in this departure his devoted friend and scholar Porphyry 
did not follow him. Porphyry not only composed an Introduc- 
tion to the Categories of Aristotle, but also vindicated them at 
great length, in a separate commentary, against the censures of 
Plotinus : Dexippus, Jamblichus, and Simplicius, followed in the 
same track. J Still, though Porphyry stood forward both as 
admirer and champion of the Aristotelian Categories, he did 
not consider that the question raised by the First Category 
of Aristotle against the Platonic Eealism was finally decided. 
This is sufficiently proved by the three problems cited above 
out of the Introduction of Porphyry; where he proclaims it 
to be a deep and difficult inquiry, whether Genera and Species 
had not a real substantive existence apart from the individuals 
composing them. Aristotle, both in the Categories and in many 
other places, had declared his opinion distinctly in the negative, 
against Plato : but Porphyry had not made up his mind between 

* Prantl — Gesch. der Logik. Vol. I. sect. vi. p. 420. ovriva rd 
KOiva 7rap avroig Xeysrai, &c. 
f Plotinus. Ennead. VI. 1, 2. 
% Simplicius. Schol. in Aristotel. Categ. — p. 40 a-b. Brandis. 



SCOTUS ERIGENA. 23 

the two, though he insists, in language very Aristotelian, on the 
distinction between First and Second Substance.* 

Through the translations and manuals of Boethius and others, 
the Categories of Aristotle were transmitted to the Latin Church- 
men, and continued to be read even through the darkest ages, 
when the Analytica and the Topica were unknown or neglected. 
The Aristotelian discrimination between First and Second Sub- 
stance was thus always kept in sight, and Boethius treated it 
much in the same manner as Porphyry had done before him.f 
Alcuin, Ehabanus Maurus, and Eric of Auxerre,J in the eighth 
and ninth centuries, repeated what they found in Boethius, and 
upheld the Aristotelian tradition unimpaired. But Scotus 
Erigena (d. 880 a.d.) took an entirely opposite view, and 
reverted to the Platonic traditions, though with a large admix- 
ture of Aristotelian ideas. He was a Christian Platonist, blend- 
ing the transcendentalism of Plato and Plotinus with theological 
dogmatic influences (derived from the Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita 
and others) and verging somewhat even towards Pantheism. 
Scotus Erigena revived the doctrine of Cogitable Universalia extra 
rem and ante rem. He declared express opposition to the arrange- 
ment of the First Aristotelian Category, whereby the individual 
was put first, in the character of subject; the Universal second, 
in the character only of predicate ; complete reality belonging to 
the two in conjunction. Scotus maintained that the Cogitable or 
Incorporeal Universal was the first, the true and complete real ; 
from whence the sensible individuals were secondary, incomplete, 
multiple, derivatives.il But though he thus adopts and enforces 
the Platonic theory of Universalia ante rem and extra rem, he does 
not think himself obliged to deny that Universalia may be in re 



The contradiction of the Aristotelian traditions, so far as con- 
cerns the First Category, thus proclaimed by Scotus Erigena, 
appears to have provoked considerable opposition among his im- 
mediate successors. Nevertheless, he also obtained partizans. 
Eemigius of Auxerre and others not only defended the Platonic 
Bealism, but carried it as far as Plato himself had done ; affirming 
that not only Universal Substances, but also Universal Accidents, 
had a real separate existence, apart from and anterior to indivi- 
duals. § The controversy for and against the Platonic Eealism 
was thus distinctly launched in the schools of the middle ages. 

* Prantl— Geschichte der Logik. Vol. I., sect. 11, p. 634, n. 69. 
Upon this account, Prantl finds Porphyry guilty of ' empiricism in its 
extreme crudeness' — ' jene atisserste Rohheit des Empirismus.' 

t Prantl— Geschichte der Logik. Vol. I., sect. 12, p. 685 ; Vol. II., 
sect. 1, p. 4-7. Trendelenburg — Kategorienlehre, p. 245. 

X Ueberweg — Geschichte der Philosophic der patristischen und 
scholastischen Zeit, sect. 21, p. 115, ed. 2nd. 

|| Prantl— Gesch. der Logik. Vol. II., ch. 13, p. 29-35. 

§ Ueberweg— Geschicht der Philos., sect. 21, p. 113. Prantl — Gesch. 
der Logik, Vol IL, ch. 13, 44, 45-47. 



24 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND KEALISM. 

It was upheld both as a philosophical revival, and as theologically- 
orthodox, entitled to supersede the traditional counter-theory of 
Aristotle. 

It has been stated above, that it was through Porphyry's 
Isagoge (in the translation of Boethius) that the schoolmen became 
acquainted with the ancient dispute as to the nature of Universals. 
Of Plato's doctrines, except in a translation of part of the Timseus, 
they had for a long time only second-hand knowledge, chiefly 
through St. Augustin ; of Aristotle, they knew down to the middle 
of the twelfth century, only the Categories and the De Interpre- 
tatione in translation, and not, until the beginning of the thirteenth, 
others besides the logical works. Down to about this time, logic 
or dialectic being the whole of philosophy, the question as to 
Universals almost excluded every other ; and, even later, when 
the field of philosophy became much wider, it never lost the first 
place as long as scholasticism remained dominant. 

Eather more than two centuries after the death of Scotus 
Erigena (about the end of the eleventh), the question was eagerly 
disputed, in its bearings upon the theological dogma of the 
Trinity, between Eoscellln", a canon of Compiegne, and Anselm, 
Archbishop of Canterbury. Anselm maintained that all individual 
men were in specie homo units, and formed a real unity; so too, 
although every person in the Godhead was perfect God, they were 
but one God. To this realistic doctrine, Eoscellin (of whom very 
little is known), founding upon some of his immediate precursors, 
opposed a theory different from the Aristotelian. Maintaining with 
Aristotle, and even more strongly than Aristotle, that the indi- 
vidual particulars were the only real entities, he declared that, in 
genera and species, the individuals were held together only sub- 
jectively by means of a general name, bestowed upon them for 
their points of similarity. The Universals were neither ante rem 
(with Plato), nor in re (with Aristotle), but post rem; and in 
themselves were nothing at all beyond voces or nomina. Eoscellin 
appears to have carried out the theory consistently, and not 
merely with reference to the special theological question. So far 
as that was concerned, he was not afraid to pronounce that the 
three persons were three individual Gods; and thereupon, his 
theology being condemned by an ecclesiastical council, the theory 
became suspect, and so remained until the late period of scholas- 
ticism. Its supporters were called by the name vocales or nomi- 
nates, Nominalists ; and it was at the same period of excited 
feeling that the name realis, Eealist, was first used to designate 
the upholders of the ancient doctrine, as held either in the 
Platonic or the Aristotelian form. 

To what lengths the discussion of the question was carried in 
the century that elapsed from the time of Anselm and Eoscellin 
till the beginning of the second period of scholasticism, may be 
seen in a list drawn up by Prantl (Gesch. d. Log. II., pp. 118-21) 
of not less than thirteen distinct opinions, or shades of opinion, 
held by different schoolmen. Of these, the most distinguished 



AQUINAS. — DUNS SCOTUS. — OCKHAM. 25 

was Abaelard (1079-1142), who took up a position between the 
extremes of Eealism and Nominalism. On the one hand, he 
denied the independent existence of Universals, and inclined 
rather to the Aristotelian view of their immanence in rebus ; on 
the other, he inveighed against the nominalism of Eoscellin, and 
pronounced that the Universals were not mere voces, but sermones 
or predications. Yet it is a mistake to describe him as a Concep- 
tualist, the name conferred upon such as, agreeing with the 
Nominalists in regard to the purely subjective character (post 
remj of the Universals, differed from these in ascribing to the 
mind the power of fashioning a Concept or notion correspondent 
to the general name. 

In the 13th century, when Scholasticism reached its highest 
development, the supremacy of Aristotle was firmly established. 
We find accordingly in Thomas Aquinas (1226-74) a supporter of 
the Aristotelian doctrine of the Universals as immanent in re; 
but, at the same time, he declared that the intellect, by abstract- 
ing the essential attributes (quiddities) of things from their acci- 
dental attributes, forms Universals post rem; and, although he 
utterly rejected the Platonic assumption of ideas as real — the only 
truly real — entia, he yet maintained that the ideas or thoughts of 
things in the Divine mind, antecedent to creation, were Universalia 
ante rem. 

His great rival in the next generation, Duns Scotus (d. 1300), 
admitting the Universals in the same three-fold sense, deter- 
mined the various related questions in a way peculiar to 
himself. Especially in regard to the question of the relation 
of the universal to the singular or individual, was he at war 
with his predecessors. Thomas had declared that in the indi- 
vidual, composed of form and matter (materia signata), the 
form was the Universal, or element common to all the indivi- 
duals ; what marked off one individual from another — the so-called 
principle of individuation — was the matter, e.g. in Sokrates, hcec 
caro, hcec ossa. But as matter bore the character of defect or im- 
perfection, Scotus complained that this was to represent the 
individual as made imperfect in being individualized, whereas it 
was the ultima realitas, the most truly perfect form of Existence. 
The principle of individuation must be something positive, and 
not, like matter, negative. The quidditas, or universal, must be 
supplemented by a hcecceitas to make it singular or individual ; 
Sokrates was made individual by the addition of Sokratitas to his 
specific and generic characteristics as man and animal. 

The next name is of the greatest importance. William of 
Ockham (d. 1347), an Englishman and pupil of Duns Scotus, 
revived the nominalistic doctrine that had been so long discredited 
amongst the leading schoolmen and frowned upon by the Church. 
From him, if not earlier, is to be dated the period of the downfall of 
Scholasticism ; severance beginning to be made of reason from 
faith, and philosophy being no longer prosecuted in the sole 
interest of theological dogma. 



26 



APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 



Universals (genera, species, and the like) were, he held, nothings 
real extra animam, but were only in mente. Calling everything that 
existed in or out of the mind a singular or individual, he asked how 
a term (terminus) like homo could be predicated of a number of indi- 
viduals. The answers of every form of Eealism, that of Duns 
Scotus included, led to absurdity ; the Eealists all began with the 
universal, and sought to explain from it the individual, whereas 
they ought to begin with the singular, which alone really exists, 
and ascend to the explanation of the universal. The true doctrine 
was that the universals were not at all in things, but in the mind ; 
and in the proposition homo est risibilis, the term homo stood not 
for any universal man, but for the real individual man, who alone 
could laugh. As to the mode of existence of the universals in the 
mind, he contented himself with enumerating various opinions 
that were or might be held, without deciding for one in particular. 
But he was ever ready with the warning : Entia non sunt multi- 
plicanda prceter necessitatem. Though he was not a nominalist pure 
and simple, — in refusing to regard the universals as mere words or 
names and nothing more — it would be committing him to more 
than he has committed himself to, if we should call him, with 
some, a Conceptualist. 

From the time of William of Ockham, the nominalistic doc- 
trine, in some shape or other, remained triumphant in the schools. 
Formerly suspected and condemned, and revived by a determined 
opponent of the papal see, it yet became so firmly established as 
a philosophical tenet, that it was accepted by the most orthodox 
theologians ; and, in the last days of scholasticism, it was actually 
Realism that became the suspicious doctrine. In fact, with philo- 
sophy growing more and more independent, and entering upon 
discussions that had no reference to religious dogma, it became 
possible for the later schoolmen to be Nominalists in regard to 
the question of Universals, while they were at the same time 
devout believers in the region of faith. It was when the question 
thus became an open one, that Realism, as a theory of Univer- 
sals, fell into discredit : as a tendency of the human mind, 
Realism remained active as before, and upon the extension of the 
field of philosophy at the beginning of the modern period, it oc- 
cupied new strongholds, from which it has not yet been dislodged. 
Since the age of Descartes, Nominalism or Conceptualism has 
been professed by the great majority of thinkers ; but the question 
has been allowed to sink into the second rank. In its stead, the 
discussion of the Origin of Knowledge, — in or before experience, — 
has risen into importance. When it was regarded as philo- 
sophically settled that Universals had no subsistence apart from 
the mind, it was a natural transition to pass to the consideration 
of their origin. But here, as in the question of perception, there 
has, during the whole modern period, been too little disposition 
to turn to account the results of the long mediaeval struggle. In 
the question of Innate Ideas the old question is directly involved. 
Hobbes is one of the few in later times to whom the question 



HOBBES. — LOCKE. 27 

had lost none of its significance, and he is besides remarkable as 
perhaps the most outspoken representative of extreme Nomi- 
nalism. His view cannot be better or more shortly given than 
in his own words : ' Of names, some are common to many things, 
as a man, a, tree; others proper to one thing, as he that writ the 
Iliad, Homer, this man, that man. And a common name, being 
the name of many things severally taken, but not collectively of 
all together (as man is not the name of all mankind, but of every 
one, as of Peter, John, and the rest severally), is therefore called 
an universal name ; and therefore this word universal is never the 
name of anything existent in nature, nor of any idea or phantasm 
formed in the mind, but always the name of some word or name ; 
so that when a living creature, a stone, a spirit, or any other thing, 
is said to be universal, it is not to be understood that any man, 
stone, &c, ever was or can be universal, but only that these 
words, living creature, stone, &c, are universal names, that is, names 
common to many things ; and the conceptions answering to them 
in our mind, are the images and phantasms of several living 
creatures or other things. And, therefore, for the understanding 
of the extent of an universal name, we need no other faculty but 
that of our imagination, by which we remember that such names 
bring sometimes one thing, sometimes another, into our mind.' 
(Hobbes, Be Corpore, c. 2, § 10.) 

Locke's view of Abstraction is contained in the Third Book of 
his Essay. In Chap. III., ' Of General Terms,' he asks (§ 6), - how 
general words came to be made, seeing that all existing things 
are particular.' He replies, ' Words become general by being 
made the signs of general ideas; and Ideas become general, by 
separating from them the circumstances of Time and Place, and 
any other ideas that may determine them to this or that particular 
existence.' He goes on to say : — Children know nothing but par- 
ticulars ; at first they know, for example, a small number of 
persons ; as their experience grows they become acquainted with 
a greater number, and discern their agreements ; they then frame 
an idea to comprise these points of agreement, which is to them 
the meaning of the general term ■ man ; ' they leave out of the Idea 
what is peculiar to Peter, James, and Mary, and retain what is 
common. The same process is repeated for still higher generalities, 
as ' animal.' A general is nothing but the power of representing 
so many particulars. Essences and Species are only other names 
for these abstract ideas. The sorting of things under names is 
the workmanship of the understanding, taking occasion from the 
similitude it observes among them, to make abstract general ideas; 
and to set them up in the mind as Patterns or Forms, to which they 
are found to agree. That the generalities are mere ideas, or men- 
tal products, and not real existences, is shown by the different 
composition of complex ideas in different minds; the idea of 
Covetousness in one man is not what it is in another. 

Locke is thus substantially a Nominalist, but does not go deep 
into the psychological nature of general ideas. He remarks justly 






28 APPENDIX— NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 



that the general idea proceeds upon similitude, designating the 
agreements of things, and leaving out the differences ; but he does 
not affirm that the mental notion is still a notion of one or more 
particulars. That he does not see the bearings of a thorough- 
going Nominalism, is evident from his making little use of it, 
in arguing against Innate Ideas. 

Berkeley's Nominalism is notorious and pronounced, and was 
in reality the wedge that split up, in his mind, the received 
theory of Perception. In the well-known passage in the Introduc- 
tion to his 'Principles of Human Knowledge/ he quotes the con- 
ceptualist doctrine, — us implying that the mind can form an idea 
of colour in the abstract by sinking every individual colour, and 
of motion in the abstract without conceiving a body moved, or the 
figure, direction, and velocity of the motion, — and comments upon 
the doctrine in these terms : — ' "Whether others have this wonder- 
ful faculty of abstracting their ideas, they best can tell. For 
myself, I find, indeed, I have a faculty of imagining, or represent- 
ing to myself the ideas of those particular things I have perceived, 
and of variously compounding and dividing them. I can imagine 
a man with two heads, or the upper part of a man joined to the 
body of a horse. I can consider the hand, the eye, the nose, each 
by itself abstracted or separated from the rest of the body. But 
then, whatever hand or eye I imagine, it must have some particular 
shape and colour. Likewise, the idea of man that I frame to 
myself, must be either of a white, or a black, or a tawny; a 
straight, or a crooked, a tall, or a low, or a middle-sized man. I 
cannot by any effort of thought conceive the abstract idea above 
described. And it is equally impossible to form the abstract idea 
of motion distinct from the body moving, and which is neither 
swift nor slow, curvilinear nor rectilinear; and the like may be 
said of all other abstract general ideas whatsoever. To be 
plain, I own myself able to abstract in one sense, as when I con- 
sider some particular parts or qualities separated from others, 
with which though they are united in some object, yet it is 
possible they may really exist without them. But I deny that I 
can abstract one from another, or conceive separately, those 
qualities which it is impossible should exist separated ; or that I 
can frame a general notion by abstracting from particulars in the 
manner aforesaid, which two last are the proper acceptations of 
abstractions.' 

Berkeley recognizes in particular objects a power of representing 
a class ; as when the geometer demonstrates a proposition upon a 
particular triangle, and infers it for all triangles. In this way, he 
says, the particular may become general, by standing for a whole 
class. The expression is incautious on his part ; a general par- 
ticular is an anomaly and a contradiction. 

Hume follows Berkeley's Nominalism with avidity and admir- 
ation, and inadvertently ascribes to Berkeley the authorship of the 
doctrine. ' A very material question,' he says, * has been started 
concerning abstract or general ideas, whether they be general or 



HUME. — BEID. — STEWART. 29 

particular in the mind's conception of them. A great philosopher 
(Dr. Berkeley) has disputed the received opinion in this particular, 
and has asserted that all general ideas are nothing but particular 
ones annexed to a certain term, which gives them a more extensive 
signification, and makes them recall upon occasion other indivi- 
duals which are similar to them. As I look upon this to be one 
of the greatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made 
of late years in the republic of letters, I shall here endeavour to 
confirm it by some arguments, which I hope will put it beyond 
all doubt and controversy.' 

He states his view thus : — * All general ideas are nothing but 
particular ones annexed to a certain term, which gives them a 
more extensive signification, and makes them recall upon occasion 
other individuals which are similar to them [488]. A particular 
idea becomes general by being annexed to a general term, that is, 
to a term which, from a customary conjunction, has a relation to 
many other particular ideas, and readily recalls them in the 
imagination. Abstract ideas are therefore in themselves indivi- 
dual, however they may become general in their representation. 
The image in the mind is only that of a particular object, though 
the application of it in our reasoning be the same as if it was 
universal.' 

Held (Intellectual Powers — Essay on Abstraction) contends 
for the mind's power of forming general conceptions. He starts 
from the faculties of discerning difference and agreement ; by 
these we are enabled to form classes, the names of which are 
general names. Such general names may be presumed to be the 
signs of general conceptions. We are able to form distinct con- 
ceptions of the separate attributes of anything, as length, breadth, 
figure, and so on. Indeed, our knowledge of a thing consists of 
the knowledge of those attributes ; we know nothing of the 
essence of an individual apart from these. We can conceive a 
triangle, not merely as an individual, with its attributes of size, 
place, and time, but to the exclusion of these individualizing 
attributes. Attributes, inseparable in nature, may yet be dis- 
joined in our conception. The general names of attributes are 
applicable to many individuals in the same sense, which cannot 
be if there are no general conceptions. 

Eeid refers to the history of the question of Realism and 
Nominalism. He dwells chiefly on the views of Berkeley and of 
Hume, declaring them to be no other than the opinions of the 
Nominalists and of Hobbes. On the whole, he confesses his 
ignorance of the ' manner how we conceive universals,' admitting, 
at the same time, that it cannot be by images of them, for there 
can be no image of a universal. In fact, Eeid's position coincides 
very nearly with Conceptualism. 

Dugald Stewart avows himself on the side of Nominalism, 
and deduces from the doctrine what he considers important con- 
sequences. There are two ways of seizing hold of general truths ; 
either by fixing the attention on one individual in such a manner, 



30 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

that our reasoning may involve no circumstances but what are 
common to the whole genus, — or, (laying aside entirely the con- 
sideration of things), by means of general terms. In either case, 
our conclusions must be general. The first method is exemplified 
in the diagrams of Geometry ; the second in the symbols of Algebra. 

The Abstract Idea is nothing more than the quality or qualities 
wherein different individuals resemble one another. Abstraction 
is the power of attending to the resembling attributes, and 
neglecting the points of difference. 

Although Stewart is thus an avowed nominalist, he yet failed 
to see the incompatibility between his doctrine and the theory of 
innate ideas, or the origin he assigns to such notions as * causation, 
time, number, truth, certainty, probability, extension ; ' which 
relate, he says, to things bearing no resemblance either to any of 
the sensible qualities of matter, or to any continuous mental 
operation. In short, we can have no idea of cause, apart alto- 
gether from causation in the concrete, as given us by perception 
through sense. 

Thomas Brown expresses the generalizing process thus : There 
is, in the first place, the perception of two or more objects ; in the 
second place, the feeling or notion [better consciousness] of their 
resemblance ; and, lastly, the expression of this common relative 
feeling by a name, afterwards used as a general name for all those 
objects, the perception of which is followed by the same common 
feeling of resemblance. Brown thus approaches to the main 
position of Nominalism, the affirmation of Resemblance among 
particular objects; but he lays himself open to criticism by his 
mode of expressing this fact of resemblance ; he calls it ' a feeling/ 
1 a general notion,' ' a common relative feeling,' ' a common 
feeling of relation ; ' all which are awkward and confused modes 
of stating that we perceive or discern the likeness of the particulars 
in question. The term ' feeling ' is inappropriate as giving an 
emotional character to an intellectual fact. 

In criticising Berkeley's handling of geometrical demon- 
stration, Brown maintains that we have still a general notion, or 
'relative feeling,' of the circumstances of agreement of particular 
things; without which general notion of a line, or a triangle, 
he thinks the demonstrations impossible and absurd. He says 
it is the very nature of a general notion not to be particular : 
for who can paint or particularize a mere relation ? This is, on 
Brown's part, the vague mode of affirming that a general word 
designates certain particulars, together with the fact of their 
resemblance. As to the difficulty connected with mathematical 
demonstration, the remark may be made, that if the use of the 
general word ' triangle ' implies the resemblance of a given figure 
to a great number of other figures, then so far as that resemblance 
goes, what is proved of one is proved of all ; and no fictitious 
triangle in the abstract is required. The affirmation of resem- 
blance carries with it the ' parity of reasoning ' assigned as the 
mode of geometrical proof. 



HAMILTON. — JAMES MILL. 31 

Hamilton regards the whole controversy of Nominalism and 
Conceptualism as ' founded on the ambiguity of the terms em- 
ployed. The opposite parties are substantially at one. Had our 
British philosophers been aware of the Leibnitzian distinction of 
Intuitive and Symbolical Knowledge; and had we, like the 
Germans, different terms, like Begriff and Anschauung, to denote 
different kinds of thought, there would have been as little differ- 
ence of opinion in regard to the nature of general notions in 
this country as in the Empire. With us, Idea, Notion, Con- 
ception, &c, are confounded, or applied by different philosophers 
in different senses. I must put the reader on his guard against 
Dr. Thomas Brown's speculations on this subject. His own doc- 
trine of universals, in so far as it is peculiar, is self- contradictory : 
and nothing can be more erroneous than his statement of the 
doctrine held by others, especially by the Nominalists. ' 

In some parts of his writings, Hamilton expresses the Nomi- 
nalistic view with great exactness; while in others, and in his 
Logical system generally, he admits a form of Conceptualism. 
(See passages quoted in Mill's Hamilton, chap. XVII.) He con- 
siders that there are thoughts such as ' cannot be represented in 
the imagination, as the thought suggested by a general term' (Edition 
of Eeid, p. 360). He also holds that we have a priori abstract 
ideas of Space and Time, a view difficult to reconcile with 
Nominalism. 

James Mill introduced some novelty into the mode of describ- 
ing the idea corresponding to a general term. Suppose, he says, 
the word foot has been associated in the mind of a child with one 
foot only, it will in that case call up the idea of that one, and not 
of the other. Suppose next, that the same name ' foot' begins to 
be applied to the child's other foot. The sound is now associated 
not constantly with one thing, but sometimes with one thing, and 
sometimes with another. The consequence is that it calls up 
sometimes the one and sometimes the other. Again, the word ' man' 
is first applied to an individual ; at first, therefore, it calls to mind 
that individual ; it is then applied to another and another, and 
thus acquires the power of calling up any one or more of a large 
number indifferently. The result is that the word becomes asso- 
ciated with the idea of a crowd, a complex and indistinct idea. 
Thus the word ' man' is not a word having a very simple idea, as 
was the opinion of the Realists ; nor a word having no idea at all, 
as was the view of the Nominalists; but a word calling up an 
indefinite number of ideas, by the power of association, and 
forming them into one very complex, and indistinct, but not 
therefore unintelligible, idea. 

In this mode of stating the nature of the general idea, the 
author has brought into view one part of the operation, not pre- 
viously laid stress upon ; the fact that the general name brings to 
mind the particulars as a host, which is an important part of the 
case. In making general affirmations, we must be perpetually 
running over the particulars, to see that our generality conflicts 



32 APPENDIX— NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

with none of them ; this constitutes the arduousness of general or 
abstract reasoning. Still, exception has been taken to the phrase 
* a complex and indistinct idea' applied to the association with a 
general name ; and a more guarded expression is desirable. The 
author's meaning is, first, that the name recalls not one individual, 
but many, and secondly, that a certain indistinctness belongs to 
our conception of the crowd. Both statements, with some explana- 
tion, are true. We do recall a number of individuals, in a rapid 
series ; we can hardly be said to have them all before us at a 
glance ; that would happen only if we had actually seen an as- 
sembled host ; we pass from one to the others by rapid transitions. 
In the second place, as a consequence of the rapidity of the transi- 
tions, and of our examining the individuals only with reference to 
one point, we may be said to. have an indistinct, or partial image 
of each ; it being the tendency of the mind, in rapid thinking, to 
economize attention, by neglecting all the aspects of an object not 
relevant at the time. In speaking of what is common to birds, 
say ' feathers,' we glance hurriedly at a number of individuals, but 
we do not unfold to view the full individuality of each. The more 
complex a thing is, the greater the number of separate glances 
requisite to comprehend it, both at first and in the memory ; we 
may therefore stop short at a partial view, but this is not to be 
confounded with an abstract idea in the meaning of Conceptualism. 

Samuel Bailey (Letters on the Human Mind, Vols. I., II.) 
has examined with great care the doctrine of general terms, being 
of opinion ' that a complete mastery of this part of mental philo- 
sophy furnishes a key for most of the difficulties besetting the 
subject, and throws a powerful light on all speculation whatso- 
ever.' He makes full use of the nominalistic theory in refuting 
Innate Ideas. 

According to him, there is no essential difference between 
what passes in the mind when proper names are heard, and when 
general names are heard. The peculiar feature, in the case of 
general names, may be stated to be, that there is possibly and 
frequently, but not necessarily, a greater range in the mental 
representations called up by any single appellation ; still there is 
nothing but an individual image, or a group or a succession of 
individual images or representations passing through the mind. 
It must be obvious, on reflection, that this is, in truth, the only 
possible effect of general terms. We rank individual objects under 
a common name, on account of their resemblance to each other in 
one or more respects ; and when we use such an appellation, the 
utmost that the nature of the case allows us to do, whether the 
name has been imposed by ourselves or others, is to recall to our 
own minds, or to those of our hearers, the whole of the single 
objects thus classed together. This is an extreme case, which, no 
doubt, may happen ; but the result is usually far short of such a 
complete ideal muster, and we recall only a very inconsiderable 
part, or even sometimes only one, of the objects covered by the 
general term. It also appears that, if the ideas thus raised up 



PLATO OX KEMINISCENCE. 33 

are sometimes vague and indefinite, the same qualities frequently 
characterize the ideas raised up by proper names, and attend even 
the perception of external objects, 

B. — TJie Origin of Knowledge — Experience and Intuition, 

p. 188. 

The dialogues of Plato present a number of different views of 
the nature and origin of knowledge. One of the most charac- 
teristic, the doctrine of Reminiscence, as set forth in the Phaedrus, 
Phaadon, and Menon, supposes the soul in a pre-existent state to 
have lived in the contemplation of the Eternal Ideas, and, when 
joined to a body, to have brought away slumbering recollections 
of them, revivable by the impressions of sense ; all cognition, but 
especially the true, consists in such awakening of the mind's 
ancient knowledge lying dormant. This is a highly poetical pre- 
sentation of the later doctrine of Innate Ideas. In the Kepublic, 
with the same fundamental conception of the origin of knowledge, 
he distinguishes its different grades : Cognition of Intelligibles is 
opposed to Opinion of Sensibles, and again each of them includes 
a higher and lower form — Cognition is Nous or Dianoia as it is 
direct or indirect, and Opinion may be Belief or mere Conjecture. 
The most explicit discussion of the question. What is knowledge ? 
is in the Theaetetus. There, while at the end he does not pretend 
to have given any settlement, in the course of the argument against 
the reduction of knowledge to sense-perception, he advances 
a peculiar 'theory. When the mind perceives sensible qualities 
like hardness, heat, sweetness, &c, it perceives them not with, but 
through, the senses. This at birth and equally in all : but some 
few, by going over and comparing simple impressions of sense, 
come to be able to apprehend, besides existence (essence and sub- 
stance), sameness, difference, likeness, unlikeness, good, and evil, 
&c, where the apprehension is by the mind, of itself alone, and 
without any aid of bodily organs. This is a remarkable view, 
because, as has been observed, he supposes these cognitions to be 
developed only out of the review and comparison of facts of sense, 
and only by a select few — two points wherein he is at variance 
with the common supporters of native mental intuitions (See 
Grote's Plato II., p. 370, seq.). 

We shall next advert to Aristotle's opinions in regard to the 
existence of a class of primary or self-evident truths, claiming a 
right to be believed on the authority of Common Sense, without 
either warrant or limit from experience. 

Sir William Hamilton (in his Dissertations on Eeid, Appendix, 
p. 771-773) enrolls Aristotle with confidence among the philoso- 
phers that have vindicated the authority of Common Sense, as 
accrediting certain universal truths, independent of experience, 
and imposing a necessity of belief, such as experience never can 
impose. Yet, of all the Aristotelian passages cited by Sir W* 
50 



34 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

Hamilton to establish this position, only one (that from the 
Mcomachean Ethics, X., 2, p. 772, marked /. by Hamilton) 
has any real force ; and that is countervailed by numerous others 
that he leaves unnoticed, as well as by the marked general tenor 
of Aristotle's writings. 

In regard to Aristotle, there are two points to be examined — 

1. What position does he take up in respect to the authority 

of Common Sense ? 

2. WTiat doctrine does he lay down about the first prin- 

cipia or beginnings of scientific reasoning — the dp%ai 

(TvWoyiGTlKCtl ? 

I.-That Aristotle did not regard Cause, Substance, Time, &c. s as 
Intuitions, is shown by the subtle and elaborate reasonings that 
he employs to explain them, and by the censure that he bestows 
on the erroneous explanations and shortcomings of others. Indeed, 
in regard to Causality, when we read the great and perplexing 
diversity of meaning which Aristotle (and Plato before him in the 
Phsedon) recognizes as belonging to this term, we cannot but be 
surprised to find modern philosophers treating it as enunciating 
a simple and intuitive idea. But as to Common Sense — taking 
the term as above explained, and as it is usually understood by 
those that have no particular theory to support — Aristotle takes 
up a position at once distinct and instructive ; a position (to use 
the phraseology of Kant) not dogmatical, but critical. He con- 
stantly notices and reports the afiirmations of Common Sense ; he 
speaks of it with respect, and assigns to it a qualified value, partly 
as helping us to survey the subject on all sides, partly as a happy 
confirmation, where it coincides with what has been proved other- 
wise ; but he does not appeal to it as authority in itself trust- 
worthy or imperative. 

Common Sense belongs to the region of opinion. Now, the 
distinction between matters of Opinion on the one hand, and 
matters of Science or Cognition on the other, is a marked and 
characteristic feature of Aristotle's philosophy. He sets, in 
pointed antithesis, Demonstration, or the method of Science — 
which divides itself into special subjects, each having some special 
principia of its own, then proceeds by legitimate steps of deductive 
reasoning from such principia, and arrives at conclusions some- 
times universally true, always true for the most part — against 
Rhetoric and Dialectic, which deal with and discuss opinions 
upon all subjects, comparing opposite arguments, and landing in 
results more or less probable. Contrasting these two as separate 
lines of intellectual procedure, Aristotle lays down a theory of 
both. He recognizes the last as being to a great degree the 
common and spontaneous growth of society ; while the first is 
from the beginning special, not merely as to subject, but as to 
persons — implying teacher and learner. 

Rhetoric and Dialectic are treated by Aristotle as analogous 
processes. Of the matter of opinion and belief, with which both 
of them deal, he distinguishes three varieties : — 1. Opinions or 



AEISTOTLE ON COMMON SENSE. 35 

beliefs entertained by all. 2. By the majority. 3. By a minority 
of superior men, or by one man in respect to a science wherein he 
has acquired renown. It is these opinions or beliefs that the 
rhetorician or the dialectician attack and defend ; bringing out all 
the arguments available for or against each. 

The Aristotelian treatise on Rhetoric opens with the following 
words : — ' Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic ; for both of 
them deal with such matters as do not fall within any special 
science, but belong in a certain way to the common know- 
ledge of all. Hence every individual has his share of both, 
greater or less ; for every one can, up to a certain point, both 
examine others and stand examination from others; every one 
tries to defend himself and to accuse others.'* To the same pur- 
pose Aristotle speaks about Dialectics, in the beginning of the 
Topica : — ' The Dialectic Syllogism (he says) takes its pre- 
mises from matters of opinion : that is, from matters that 
seem good to (or are believed by) all, or the majority, or the wise; 
either all the wise, or most of them, or the most celebrated.' — 
Aristotle distinguishes these matters of common opinion or belief, 
from three distinct other matters. 1. From matters that are not 
really such, but only in appearance ; in which the smallest atten- 
tion suffices to detect the false pretence of probability, while no 
one except a contentious Sophist ever thinks of advancing them. 
On the contrary, the real matters of common belief are never thus 
palpably false, but have always something deeper than a superficial 
show. 2. From the first truths or principia, upon which scientific 
demonstration proceeds. 3. From the paralogisms, or fallacious 
assumptions (iptvdoypcKprjuaTa), liable to occur in each particular 
science. 

Now, what Aristotle here designates and defines as i matters 
of common opinion and belief (rd ev8o%a), includes all that is 
usually meant, and properly meant, by Common Sense ; ' what 
is believed by all men or by most men.' But Aristotle does not 
claim any warrant or authority for the truth of these beliefs, 
on the ground of their being deliverances of Common Sense, and 
accepted (by all or by the majority) always as indisputable, often 
as self-evident. On the contrary, he ranks them as mere proba- 
bilities, some in a greater, some in a less degree; as matters 
whereon something may be said hoth. pro and con, and whereon the 
full force of argument on both sides ought to be brought out, 
notwithstanding the supposed self- evidence in the minds of un- 
scientific believers. Though, however, he encourages this dialectic 
discussion on both sides, as useful and instructive, he never affirms 
that it can, by itself, lead, to certain scientific conclusions, or to 
anything more than strong probability on a balance of the coun- 
tervailing considerations. The language that he uses in speaking of 
these deliverances of common sense is measured and just. After 
distinguishing the real common opinion from the fallacious simu- 

* Aristot. Rhetor. I. 1. Compare Sophist. Elench., p. 172, a. 30. 



36 APPENDIX— ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

lations of common opinion set up (according to him) by some 
pretenders, he declares, that in all cases of common opinion there 
is always something more than a mere superficial appearance of 
truth. In other words, wherever any opinion is really held by a 
large public, it always deserves the scrutiny of the philosopher, 
to ascertain how far it is erroneous, and, if it be erroneous, by 
what appearances of reason it has been enabled so far to prevail. 

Again, at the beginning of the Topica (in which books he gives 
both a theory and precepts of dialectical debate), Aristotle specifies 
four different ends to be served by that treatise. It will be useful 
(he says) — 

1. For our own practice in the work of debate. If we acquire 
a method and system, we shall find it easier to conduct a debate 
on any new subject, whenever such debate may arise. 

2. For our daily intercourse with the ordinary public. When 
we have made for ourselves a full collection of the opinions held 
by the Many, we shall carry on our conversation with them out 
of their own doctrines, and not out of doctrines foreign to their 
minds ; we shall thus be able to bring them round on any matter 
where we think them in error. 

3. For the sciences belonging to philosophy. By discussing 
the difficulties on both sides, we shall more easily discriminate 
truth and falsehood in each separate scientific question. 

4. For the first and highest among the principia of each parti- 
cular science. These, since they are the first and highest of all, 
cannot be discussed out of principia special and peculiar to any 
separate science; but must be discussed through the opinions 
commonly received on the subject-matter of each. This is the 
main province of Dialectic : which, being essentially testing and 
critical, is connected by some threads with the principia of all the 
various scientific researches. 

We see thus that Aristotle's language about Common Opinion 
or Common Sense is very guarded : that, instead of citing it as 
an authority, he carefully discriminates it from Science, and places 
it decidedly on a level lower than science, in respect of evidence : 
yet that he recognizes it as essential to be studied by the scientific 
man, with full confrontation of all the reasonings both for and 
against every opinion ; not merely because such study will enable 
the scientific man to study and converse intelligibly and effi- 
caciously with the vulgar ; but also because it will sharpen his 
discernment for the truths of his own science; and because it 
furnishes the only materials for testing and limiting the first 
principia of that science. 

II. — We will next advert to the judgment of Aristotle re- 
specting these principia of science ; how he supposes them to be 
acquired and verified. He discriminates various special sciences 
(geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, &c), each of which has its 
own appropriate matter, and special principia from which it takes 
its departure. But there are also certain principia common to 
them all: and these he considers to fall under the cognizance of 



ARISTOTLE ON THE SOUKCE OF FIRST PRINCIPLES. 37 

one grand comprehensive science, which includes all the rest: 
First Philosophy or Ontology — the science of Ens in its most 
general sense, quatenus Ens ; while each of the separate Sciences 
confines itself to one exclusive department of Ens. The geometer 
does not debate nor prove the first principia of his own science : 
neither those that it has in common with other sciences, nor 
those peculiar to itself. He takes these for granted, and demon- 
strates the consequences that logically follow from them. It 
belongs to the First Philosopher to discuss the principia of all. 
Accordingly, the province of the First Philosopher is all-compre- 
hensive, co-extensive with all the sciences. So also is the province 
of the Dialectician alike all-comprehensive. Thus far the two 
agree ; but they differ as to method and purpose. The Dialec- 
tician seeks to enforce, confront, and value all the different 
reasons pro and con, consistent and inconsistent : the First Philo- 
sopher performs this too, or supposes it to be performed by others 
— but proceeds farther: namely, to determine certain axioms 
that may be trusted as sure grounds (along with certain other 
principiaj for demonstrative conclusions in science. 

Aristotle describes in his Analytica the process of demonstra- 
tion, and the conditions required to render it valid. But what is 
the point of departure for this process ? Aristotle declares that 
there cannot be a regress without end, demonstrating one con- 
clusion from certain premises, then demonstrating those premises 
from others, and so on. You must arrive ultimately at some pre- 
mises that are themselves undemonstrable, but that may be 
trusted as ground from whence to start in demonstrating con- 
clusions. All demonstration is carried on through a middle term, 
which links together the two terms of the conclusion, though 
itself does not appear in the conclusion. Those undemonstrable 
propositions, from which demonstration begins, must be known 
without a middle term — that is, immediately known ; they must 
be known in themselves — that is, not through any other propo- 
sitions ; they must be better known than the conclusions derived 
from them ; they must be propositions first and most knowable. 
But these two last epithets (Aristotle often repeats) have two 
meanings : First and most knowable by nature or absolutely, are 
the most universal propositions : first and most knowable to us, 
are those propositions declaring the particular facts of sense. 
These two meanings designate truths correlative to each other, 
but at opposite ends of the intellectual line of march. 

Of these undemonstrable principia, indispensable as the grounds 
of all demonstration, some are peculiar to each separate science, 
others are common to several or to all sciences. These common 
principles were called Axioms, in the mathematics, even in the 
time of Aristotle. Sometimes indeed he designates them as 
Axioms, without any special reference to mathematics : though he 
also uses the same name to denote other propositions, not of the 
like fundamental character. Now, how do we come to know these 
undemonstrable Axioms and other immediate propositions or 



38 APPENDIX-OMGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

principia, since we do not know them by demonstration ? This is 
the second question to be answered, in appreciating Aristotle's 
views about the Philosophy of Common Sense. 

He is very explicit in his way of answering this question. He 
pronounces it absurd to suppose that these immediate principia 
are innate or congenital, — in other words, that we possess them 
from the beginning, and yet that we remain for a long time 
without any consciousness of possessing them, seeing that they 
are the most accurate of all our cognita. What we possess at the 
beginning (Aristotle says) is only a mental power of inferior 
accuracy and dignity. We, as well as all other animals, begin 
with a congenital discriminative power called sensible perception. 
With many animals, the data of perception are transient, and 
soon disappear altogether, so that the cognition of such animals 
consists in nothing but successive acts of sensible perception. 
With us, on the contrary, as with some other animals, the data 
of perception are preserved by memory ; accordingly our cogni- 
tions include both perceptions and remembrances. Farthermore, 
we are distinguished even from the better animals by this difference 
— that with us, but not with them, a rational order of thought 
grows out of such data of perception, when multiplied and long 
preserved. And thus, out of perception grows memory : out of 
memory of the same matter often repeated, grows experience — 
since many remembrances of the same thing constitute one nu- 
merical experience. Out of such experience, a farther conse- 
quence arises — That what is one and the same, in all the particulars, 
(the Universal or the one alongside of the many) becomes fixed or 
rests steadily within the mind. Herein lies the principium of 
Art, in reference to Agenda, or Facienda — of Science, in reference 
to Entia. 

Thus these cognitive principia are not original and determinate 
possessions of the mind — nor do they spring from any other mental 
possessions of a higher cognitive order, but simply from data 
of sensible perception : which data are like runaway soldiers in a 
panic — first one stops his flight and halts, then a second follows 
the example, afterwards a third and fourth, until at length an 
orderly array is obtained. Our minds are so constituted as to 
render this possible. If a single individual impression is thus de- 
tained, it will presently acquire the character of a Universal in the 
mind : for though we perceive the particular, our perception is of 
the universal (i.e., when we perceive Kallias, our perception is of 
man generally, not of the man Kallias). Again, the fixture of 
these lowest Universals in the mind will bring in those of the 
next highest order ; until at length the Summa Genera and the 
absolute Universals acquire a steady establishment therein. Thus, 
from this or that particular animal, we shall rise as high as 
Animal Universally : and so on from Animal upwards. 

We thus see clearly (Aristotle says) — That only by Induction 
can we come to know the first principia of demonstration : for it 
is by this process that sensible perception engraves the Universal 



FIRST PRINCIPLES COME AT BY INDUCTION. 39 

on our minds.* We begin by the notiora nobis (Particulars), and 
ascend to the notiora naturd or simpliciter (Universals). Some 
among our mental habits that are conversant with truth, are 
also capable of falsehood (such as Opinion and Reasoning) : others 
are not so capable, but embrace uniformly truth, and nothing but 
truth — s' ch are Science and Intellect (Nove). Intellect is the 
only source more accurate than Science. Now, the principia 
of Demonstration are more accurate than the Demonstrations 
themselves — yet they cannot (as we have already observed) be the 
objects of Science. They must therefore be the object of what 
is more accurate than Science: namely, of Intellect. Intel- 
lect and the objects of Intellect will thus be the principia of 
Science and of the objects of Science. But these principles are not 
intuitive data or revelations. They are acquisitions gradually 
made : and there is a regular road whereby we travel up to them, 
quite distinct from the road whereby we travel down from them 
to scientific conclusions. 

The chapter just indicated in the Analytica Posteriora, attest- 
ing the growth of those universals that form the principia of 
demonstration out of the particulars of sense, maybe illustrated by 
a similar statement in the first book of the Metaphysica. Here, 
after stating that sensible perception is common to all animals, he 
distinguishes the lowest among animals, who have this alone; 
then, a class next above them, who have it along with phantasy 
and memory, and some of whom are intelligent (like bees), yet 
still cannot learn, from being destitute of hearing ; farther, another 
class, one stage higher, who hear, and therefore can be taught 
something, yet arrive only at a scanty sum of experience ; lastly, 
still higher, the class men, who possess a large stock of phantasy, 
memory, and experience, fructifying into science and art.f 
Experience (Aristotle says) is of particular facts ; art and science 

* Aristot. Anal. Post. IL, p. 100, b. 2, drjXov 8$ on r\\Civ rd iro&ra 
tirayioyy yviopi&ip avayicaXov* Kal yap Kal aiaOijcng ovtio to kcl96\ov 
sfiiroisl', also Anal. Post. I., p. 81, b. 3, c. 18, — upon which passage, 
Waitz, in his note, explains as follows (p. 347) : ( Sententia nostri loci 
hsec est. Universales propositiones omnes inductione comparantur, 
quum etiam in iis, quae a sensibus maxime aliena videntur, et quae (ut 
mathematica, ra «£ ci<paips(T£<*)Q) cogitatione separantur a materia quacum 
conjuncta sunt, inductione probentur ea quae de genere (e.g. de linea, de 
corpore mathematico) ad quod demonstratio pertineat praedicentur jca0' 
avrci et cum ejus natura conjuncta sint. Inductio autem iis nititur quae 
sensibus percipiuntur : nam res singulares sentiuntur, scientia vero rerum 
singularium non datur sine inductione, non datur inductio sine sensu. * 

t Aristot. Metaphys. A. I. 980, a. 25, b. 27, (ppovifxa fikv avev rov 
fiavQaveiVy ova fir} Svvarai rwv ypoQuv clkovsiv, olov /isXtrra, Kal el ti 
roiovrov d\Xo ykvog Z,u)it)v koriv. 

We remark here the line that he draws between the intelligence of 
bees, depending altogether upon sense, memory, and experience — and the 
aigher intelligence which is superadded by the use of language ; when it 
becomes possible to teach and learn, and when general conceptions can 
i>e brought into view through appropriate names. 



40 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

are of universals. Art is attained, when out of many conceptions 
of experience there arises one universal persuasion respecting 
phenomena similar to each other. We may know that Kallias, 
sick of a certain disease — that Sokrates, likewise sick of it — that 
A, B, C, and other individuals besides, — have been cured by a given 
remedy ; but this persuasion respecting ever so many individual 
cases, is mere matter of experience. When, however, we proceed 
to generalize these cases, and then affirm that the remedy cures 
all persons suffering under the same disease, circumscribed by 
specific marks— fever or biliousness — this is art or science. One 
man may know the particular cases empirically, without having 
generalized them into a doctrine ; another may have learnt the 
general doctrine, with little or no knowledge of the particular 
cases. Of these two, the last is the wiser and more philosophical 
man ; but the first may be the more effective and successful as a 
practitioner. 

In the passage above noticed, Aristotle draws the line of intel- 
lectual distinction between man and the lower animals. If he had 
considered that it was the prerogative of man to possess a stock 
of intuitive general truths, ready-made, and independent of 
experience, this w T as the occasion for saying so. He says the exact 
contrary. No modern psychologist could proclaim more fully than 
Aristotle here does, the derivation of all general concepts and 
general propositions from the phenomena of sense, through the 
successive stages of memory, association, comparison, abstraction. 
No one could give a more explicit acknowledgment of Induction 
from particulars of sense, as the process whereby we reach 
ultimately those propositions of the highest universality, as well 
as of the highest certainty; from whence, by legitimate deductive 
syllogism, we descend to demonstrate various conclusions. There 
is nothing in Aristotle about generalities originally inherent in 
the mind, connate although dormant at first and unknown, until 
they are evoked or elicited by the senses : nothing to countenance 
that nice distinction eulogized so emphatically by Hamilton 
(p. 772, a. note) : * Cognitio nostra amoris a mente primam 
originem, a Sensibus exordium habet primum. 5 In Aristotle's 
view, the Senses furnish both originem and exordium : the succes- 
sive stages of mental procedure, whereby we rise from sense to 
universal propositions, are multiplied and gradual, without any 
break. He even goes so far as to say that \ we have sensible per- 
ception of the Universal.' His language undoubtedly calls for 
much criticism here. We shall only say that it discountenances 
altogether the doctrine that represents the Mind or Intellect as 
an original source of First or Universal Truths peculiar to itself. 
That opinion is mentioned by Aristotle, but mentioned only to be 
rejected. He denies that the mind possesses any such ready-made 
stores, latent until elicited into consciousness. Moreover, it is 
remarkable that the ground whereon he denies it, is much the 
same as that whereon the advocates of intuitions affirm it — viz., 
the supreme accuracy of these axioms. Aristotle cannot believe 



ARISTOTLE OPPOSED TO INTUITIVE COGNITIONS. 41 

that the mind includes cognitions of such value, without being 
conscious thereof. Nor will he grant that the mind possesses any- 
native and inherent power of originating these inestimable prin- 
cipia* He declares that they are generated in the mind only by 
the slow process of induction, as above described ; beginning from 
the perceptive power (common to man with animals), together 
with that first stage of the intelligence (judging or discriminative) 
which he combines or identifies with perception, considering it to 
be alike congenital. From this humble basis, men can rise to the 
highest grades of cognition, though animals cannot. "We even 
become competent (Aristotle says) to have sensible perception of 
the Universal : in the man Kallias, we see man ; in the ox feeding 
near us, we see animal. 

It must be remembered that when Aristotle, in this analysis 
of cognition, speaks of Induction, he means induction completely 
and accuratelyperformed ; just as, when he talks of Demonstration, 
he intends a good and legitimate demonstration; and just as (to use 
his own illustration in the Nicomachean Ethics), when he reasons 
upon a harper, or other professional artist, he always tacitly im- 
plies a good and accomplished artist. Induction, thus understood, 
and Demonstration, he considers to be the two processes for obtain- 
ing scientific faith or conviction ; both of them being alike cogent 
and necessary, but Induction even more so than Demonstration ; 
because if the principia furnished by the former were not necessary, 
neither could the conclusions deduced from them by the latter be 
necessary. Induction may thus stand alone without demonstra- 
tion, but demonstration pre-supposes and postulates induction. 
Accordingly, when Aristotle proceeds to specify those functions of 
mind wherewith the inductive principia and the demonstrated 
conclusions correlate, he refers both of them to functions wherein 
(according to him) the mind is unerring and infallible — Intellect 
(Noug) and Science. But, between these two, he ranks Intellect 
as the higher, and he refers the inductive principia to Intellect. 
He does not mean that Intellect (Noug) generates or produces these 
principles. On the contrary, he distinctly negatives such a sup- 
position, and declared that no generative force of this high order 
resides in the Intellect : while he tells us, with equal distinctness, 
that they are generated from a lower source — sensible perception, 

* Aristot. Anal. Post. II. 19, p. 99, b. 26, el drj exofiev avrag, aroitot 
avufiaivei yap aKpifiecrTSpag exovraQ yvwcreig dirodti^euyg XavO&veiv — 
<pavepbv roivov on ovr' tx* iv olov re, ovt ayvoovai nal fxrjdefxiav ex 0V(Ttv 
e£iv iyyivinQai. dvayicr) dpa tx s lv f L * v TLva Svvafuv, fxrj roiavrrjv d* ex HV 
t) karat rovrwv rifxnorkpa kcct' UKpifieiav. See Metaphys. A. 993. a. 1. 

Some modern psychologists, who admit that general propositions of a 
lower degree of universality are raised from induction and sense, contend 
that propositions of the highest universality are not so raised, but are the 
intuitive offspring of the intellect. Aristotle does not countenance such a 
doctrine: he says (Metaphys. A. 2,982, a. 22) that these truths furthest 
removed from sense are the most difficult to know of all. If they were 
intuitions, they would be the common possession of the race. 



42 APPENDIX— ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

and through the gradual upward march of the inductive process. 
To say that they originate from sense through Induction, and 
nevertheless to refer them to Intellect (Nouc) as their subjective cor- 
relate — are not positions inconsistent with each other,, in the view of 
Aristotle, He expressly distinguishes the two points, as requiring 
to be separately dealt with. By referring the principia to Intellect 
(No5(t), he does not intend to indicate their generating source, but 
their evidentiary value and dignity when generated and matured. 
They possess, in his view, the maximum of dignity, certainty, 
cogency, and necessity, because it is from them that even Demon- 
stration derives the necessity of its conclusions ; accordingly (pur- 
suant to the inclination of the ancient philosophers for presuming 
affinity and commensurate dignity between the Cognitum and the 
Cognoscens), they belong as objective correlates to the most un- 
erring cognitive function — the Intellect (NoDe). It is the Intellect 
that grasps these principles, and applies them to their legitimate 
purpose of scientific demonstration ; hence, Aristotle calls Intellect 
not only the principium of Science, but the principium principii. 

In the Analytica, from which we have hitherto cited, Aristotle 
explains the structure of the syllogism and the process of demon- 
stration. He has in view mainly (though not exclusively) the 
more exact sciences, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, &c. But 
he expressly tells us that all departments of inquiry are not cap- 
able of this exactness ; that some come nearer to it than others ; 
that we must be careful to require no more exactness from each 
than the subject admits ; and that the method adopted by us 
must be such as will attain the admissible maximum of exact- 
ness. Now, each subject has some principia, and among them 
definitions, peculiar to itself ; though there are also some prin- 
cipia common to all, and essential to the march of each. In 
some departments of study (Aristotle says) we get our view 
of principia or first principles by induction; in others, by 
sensible perception; in others again, by habitual action in a 
certain way; and by various other processes also. In each, 
it is important to look for first principles in the way natur- 
ally appropriate to the matter before us ; for this is more than 
half of the whole work ; upon right first principles will mainly 
depend the value of our conclusions. For what concerns Ethics, 
Aristotle tells us that the first principles are acquired through a 
course of well directed habitual action ; and that they will be 
acquired easily, as well as certainly, if such a course be enforced 
on youth from the beginning. In the beginning of the Physica, 
he starts from that antithesis, so often found in his writings,, 
between what is more knowable to us, and what is more knowable 
absolutely or by nature. The natural march of knowledge is to 
ascend from the first of these two termini (particulars of sense) 
upward to the second or opposite* — and then to descend down- 
ward by demonstration or deduction. The fact of motion he 

* See also Aristot. Metaphys. Z. p. 1029, b. 1-14. 



ARISTOTLE'S FIRST PHILOSOPHY. 43 

proves (against Melissus and Parmenides) by an express appeal to 
induction, as sufficient and conclusive evidence. In physical 
science (he says), the final appeal must be to the things and facts 
perceived by sense. In the treatise De Caelo, he lays it down that 
the principia must be homogeneous with the matters they be- 
long to : the principia of perceivable matters must be themselves 
perceivable ; those of eternal matters must be eternal ; those of 
perishable matters perishable. 

The treatises composing the Organon stand apart among 
Aristotle's works. In them he undertakes (for the first time in the 
history of mankind) the systematic study of significant proposi- 
tions enunciative of truth and falsehood. He analyzes their 
constituent elements ; he specifies the conditions determining 
the consistency or inconsistency of such propositions one with 
another ; he teaches to arrange the propositions in such ways as 
to detect and dismiss the inconsistent, keeping our hold of the con- 
sistent. Here the signification of terms and propositions is never 
out of sight : the facts and realities of nature are regarded as so 
signified. Now, all language becomes significant only through the 
convention of mankind, according to Aristotle's express declara- 
tion ; it is used by speakers to communicate what they mean, to 
hearers that understand them. We see thus that in these trea- 
tises the subjective point of view is brought into the foreground ; 
the enunciation of what we see, remember, believe, disbelieve, 
doubt, anticipate, &c. It is not meant that the objective point of 
view is eliminated, but that it is taken in implication with, and 
in dependence upon, the subjective. Neither the one nor the 
other is dropped or hidden. It is under this double and conjoint 
point of view that Aristotle, in the Organon, presents to us, not 
only the processes of demonstration and confutation, but also the 
fundamental principia or axioms thereof ; which axioms in the 
Ajialytica Posteriora (as we have already seen) he expressly de- 
clares to originate from the data of sense, and to be raised and 
generalized by induction. 

Such is the way that Aristotle represents the fundamental 
principles of syllogistic demonstration, when he deals with them 
as portions of logic. But we also find him deaHng with them as 
portions of Ontology or First Philosophy (this being his manner 
of characterizing his own treatise, now commonly known as the 
Metaphysica). To that science he decides, after some preliminary 
debate, that the task of formulating and defending the axioms 
belongs, because the application of these axioms is quite universal, 
for all grades and varieties of Entia. Ontology treats of Ens in 
its largest sense, with all its properties quatenus Ens r including 
Unum, Multa, Idem, Diversum, Posterius, Prius, Genus, Species, 
Totum, Partes, &c. Now, Ontology is with Aristotle a purely 
objective science ; that is, a science wherein the subjective is 
dropt out of sight, and no account taken of it, — or wherein (to 
state the same fact in the language of relativity) the believing and 
reasoning subject is supposed constant. Ontology is the most 



44 APPENDIX— ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE, 

comprehensive among all the objective sciences. Each of these 
sciences singles out a certain portion of it for special study. In 
treating the logical axioms as portions of Ontology, Aristotle 
undertakes to show their objective value ; and this purpose, while 
it carries him away from the point of view that we remarked as 
prevailing in the Organon, at the same time brings him into con- 
flict with various theories, all of them in his time more or less 
current. Several philosophers — Heracleitus, Anaxagoras, Demo- 
critus, Protagoras, had propounded theories which Aristotle here 
impugns. We do not mean that these philosophers expressly 
denied his fundamental axioms (which they probably never dis- 
tinctly stated to themselves, and which Aristotle was the first to 
formulate), but their theories were to a certain extent inconsistent 
with these axioms, and were regarded by Aristotle as wholly in- 
consistent. 

The two axioms announced in the Metaphysica, and vindicated 
by Aristotle, are — 

1. The Maxim of Contradiction — It is impossible for the same 
thing to be and not to be ; It is impossible for the same to belong 
and not to belong to the same, at the same time and in the same 
sense. This is the statement of the Maxim as a formula of Ont- 
ology. Announced as a formula of Logic, it would stand thus — 
The same proposition cannot be both true and false at the same 
time ; You cannot both believe and disbelieve the same proposition 
at the same time ; You cannot believe, at the same time, proposi- 
tions contrary or contradictory. These last-mentioned formulae 
are the logical ways of stating the axiom. They present it in 
reference to the believing or disbelieving (affirming or denying) 
Subject, distinctly brought to view along with the matter believed; 
not exclusively in reference to the matter believed, to the omission 
of the believer. 

2. The Maxim of Excluded Middle— A given attribute either 
does belong, or does not belong to a subject (i.e., provided that it 
has any relation to the subject at all) ; there is no medium, no 
real condition intermediate between the two. This is the Onto- 
logical Formula ; and it will stand thus, when translated into Logic 
— Between a proposition and its contradictory opposite there is no 
tenable halting ground. If you disbelieve the one, you must pass 
at once to the belief of the other ; you cannot at the same time 
disbelieve the other. 

These two maxims thus teach — the first, that we cannot at the 
same time believe both a proposition and its contradictory opposite ; 
the second, that we cannot at the same time disbelieve them both. * 



* We have here discussed these two maxims chiefly in reference to 
Aristotle's manner of presenting them, and to the conceptions of his pre- 
decessors and contemporaries. An excellent view of the Maxims them- 
selves, in their true meaning and value, will be found in Mr. John Stuart 
Mill's Examination of the Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton, chap. xxi. 
p. 462-479. 



MAXIM OF CONTRADICTION. 45 

Now, Heracleitus, in his theory (a theory propounded much 
before the time of Protagoras and the persons called Sophists), 
denied all permanence or durability in nature, and recognized 
nothing except perpetual movement and change. He denied both 
durable substances and durable attributes ; he considered nothing 
to be lasting except the universal law or principle of change— the 
ever-renewed junction or co- existence of contraries, and the per- 
petual transition of one contrary into the other. This view of 
the facts of nature was adopted by several other physical philo- 
sophers besides.* Indeed it lay at the bottom of Plato's new 
coinage — Rational Types or Forms, at once universal and real. 
The maxim of Contradiction is intended by Aristotle to controvert 
Heracleitus, and to uphold durable substances with definite 
attributes. 

Again, the theory of Anaxagoras denied all simple bodies 
(excepting Nous) and all definite attributes. He held that every- 
thing was mingled with everything else, though there might be 
some one or other predominant constituent. In all the changes 
visible throughout nature, there was no generation of anything 
new, but only the coming into prominence of some constituent 
that had before been comparatively latent. According to this 
theory, you could neither wholly affirm, nor wholly deny, any 
attribute of its subject. Both affirmation and denial were untrue : 
the real relation between the two was something half-way between 
affirmation and denial. The maxim of Excluded Middle is main- 
tained by Aristotle as a doctrine in opposition to this theory of 
Anaxagoras. t 

Both the two above-mentioned theories are objective. A third, 
that of Protagoras — Homo Mensura — brings forward prominently 
the subjective, and is quite distinct from either. Aristotle does in- 
deed treat the Protagorean theory as substantially identical with 
that of Heracleitus, and as standing or falling therewith. This 
seems a mistake ; the theory of Protagoras is as much opposed to 
Heracleitus as to Aristotle. 

We have now to see how Aristotle sustains these two Axioms 
(which he calls ' the firmest of all truths and the most assuredly 
known') against theories opposed to them. In the first place, 
he repeats here what he had declared in the Analytica Posteriora 
— that they cannot be directly demonstrated, though they are 
themselves the principia of all demonstration. Some persons 
indeed thought that these Axioms were demonstrable ; but this 
is an error, proceeding (he says) from complete ignorance of 
analytical theory. How, then, are these axioms to be proved 
against Heracleitus ? Aristotle had told us in the Analytica that 
axioms were derived from particulars of sense by Induction, and 
apprehended or approved by the NoDg. He does not repeat that 
observation here ; but he intimates that there is only one process 

* See Grote's Plato— vol. L, ch. 1, p. 28-38. 
f Grote— Plato, &c— ch. 1, p. 49-57. 



46 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

available for defending them, and that process amounts to an appeal 
to Induction. You can give no ontological reason in support of the 
axioms, except what will be condemned as a jpetitio principii ; 
you must take them in their logical aspect, as enunciated in signi- 
ficant propositions. You must require the Heracleitean adversary 
to answer some question affirmatively, in terms significant both 
to himself and to others, and in a proposition declaring his belief 
on the point. If he will not do this, you can hold no discussion 
with him : he might as well be deaf and dumb : he is no better 
than a plant (to use Aristotle's own comparison). If he does it, 
he has bound himself to something determinate : first, the signi- 
fication of the terms is a fact, excluding what is contrary or con- 
tradictory ; next, in declaring his belief, he at the same time 
declares that he does not believe in the contrary or contradictory, 
and is so understood by the hearers. We may grant what his 
theory affirms — that the subject of a proposition is continually 
under some change or movement ; yet the identity designated by 
its name is still maintained,* and many true predications respect- 
ing it remain true in spite of its partial change. The argument 
in defence of the maxim of Contradiction is, that it is a postulate 
implied in all the particular statements, as to matters of daily 
experience, that a man understands and acts upon when heard 
from his neighbours ; a postulate such that, if you deny it, no 
speech is either significant or trustworthy to inform and guide 
those who hear it. If the speaker both affirms and denies the 
same fact at once, no information is conveyed, nor can the hearer 
act upon the words. Thus, in the Acharnenses of Aristophanes, 
Dikaeopolis knocks at the door of Euripides, and inquires whether 
the poet is within ; Kephisophon, the attendant, answers — 
'Euripides is within and not within.' This answer is unintel- 
ligible ; Dikaeopolis cannot act upon it ; until Kephisophon ex- 
plains .that l not within' is intended metaphorically. Then, 
again,; all the actions in detail of a man's life are founded upon 
his own belief of some facts and disbelief of other facts ; he goes 
to Megara, believing that the person whom he desires to see is at 
Megara, and at the same time disbelieving the contrary : he acts 
upon his belief, both as to what is good and what is not good, in 
the way of pursuit and avoidance. You may cite innumerable 
examples both of speech and action in the detail of life, which the 
Heracleitean must go through like other persons ; and when, if he 
proceeded upon his own theory, he could neither give nor receive 
information by speech, nor ground any action upon the beliefs 
which he declares to co-exist in his own mind. Accordingly, the 
Heracleitean Kratylus (so Aristotle says) renounced the use of 
affirmative speech, and simply pointed with his finger, f 

* This argument is given by Aristotle, Metaph. V. 1010, a. 6-24, con- 
trasting change Kara, to ttogov and change kclto. to ttolov. 

t Aristot. Metaph. T. 1010, a. 13. Compare Plato Thesstet. p. 179-180, 
about the aversion of the Heracleiteans for clear issues and propo- 
sitions. 



I 



MAXIM OF EXCLUDED MIDDLE. 47 

The maxim of Contradiction is thus seen to be only the general 
expression of a postulate implied in all such particular speeches as 
communicate real information. It is proved by a very copious 
and diversified Induction, from matters of experience familiar to 
every individual person. It is not less true in regard to proposi- 
tions affirming changes, motions, or events, than in regard to 
those declaring durable states or attributes. 

In the long pleading of Aristotle on behalf of the maxim of 
Contradiction against the Heracleiteans, the portion of it that 
appeals to Induction is the really forcible portion : conforming as 
it does to what he had laid down in the Analytica Posteriora 
about the inductive origin of the principia of demonstration. He 
employs, however, besides, several other dialectical arguments, 
built, more or less, upon theories of his own, and therefore not 
likely to weigh much with an Heracleitean theorist ; who — argu- 
ing as he did that (because neither subject nor predicate were ever 
unchanged or stable for two moments together) no true proposi- 
tion could be framed but was at the same time false, and that 
contraries were in perpetual co-existence, — could not by any 
general reasoning be involved in greater contradiction and incon- 
sistency than he at once openly proclaimed.* It can only be shown 
that such a doctrine cannot be reconciled with the necessities of 
daily speech, as practised by himself, as well as by others. We 
read indeed one ingenious argument whereby Aristotle adopts this 
belief in the co-existence of Contraries, but explains it in a manner 
of his own, through his much employed distinction between poten- 
tial and actual existence. Two contraries cannot co- exist (he says) 
in actuality : but they both may and do co-exist, in different senses 
— one or both of them being potential. This, however, is a theory 
totally different from that of Heracleitus : coincident only in words 
and in seeming. It does indeed eliminate the contradiction : but 
that very contradiction formed the characteristic feature and key- 
stone of the Heracleitean theory. The case against this last theoiy 
is, that it is at variance with psychological facts, by incorrectly 
assuming the co-existence of contradictory belief s in the mind : and 
that it conflicts both with postulates implied in the daily colloquy 
of detail between man and man, and with the volitional preferences 
that determine individual action. All of these are founded on a 
belief in the regular sequence of our sensations, and in the at 
least temporary durability of combined potential aggregates of 
sensations, which we enunciate in the language of definite attributes 
belonging to definite substances. This language, the common 

* This is stated by Aristotle himself (Metaph. r. 1011 a. 15) oi 8' iv 
Tip Xoyy rrjv j3lav fiovov ZrjrovvTeg uZvvarov Ztjtovgiv' Ivavria yap dn&v 
dkiou<Ttv, evOvg evavria Xeyovreg. He here indeed applies this obser- 
vation immediately to the Protagoreans, against whom it does not tell — 
instead of the Heracleiteans, against whom it does tell. Indeed, the 
whole of the reasoning in this part of the Metaphysica, is directed indis- 
criminately and in the same words against Protagoreans and Hera- 
cleiteans. 



48 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE, 

medium of communication among non-theorizing men, is accepted 
as a basis, and is generalized and regularized, in the logical theories 
of Aristotle. 

The doctrine here mentioned is vindicated by Aristotle, not only 
against Heracleitus, by asserting the Maxim of Contradiction, 
but also against Anaxagoras, by asserting the Maxim of Excluded 
Middle. Here we have the second principium of demonstration, 
which, if it required to be defended at all, can only be defended 
(like the first) by a process of Induction. Aristotle adduces several 
arguments in support of it, some of which involve an appeal to 
induction, though not broadly or openly avowed ; but others of 
them assume what adversaries, and Anaxagoras especially, were 
not likely to grant. We must remember that both Anaxagoras 
and Heracleitus propounded their theories as portions of physical 
philosophy or of Ontology ; and that in their time no such logical 
principles and distinctions as those that Aristotle lays down ia 
the Organon, had yet been made known or pressed upon their 
attention. Now, Aristotle, while professing to defend these 
Axioms as data of Ontology, forgets that they deal with the logical 
aspect of Ontology, as formulated in methodical propositions. 
His view of the Axioms cannot be properly appreciated without 
a classification of propositions, such as neither Heracleitus nor 
Anaxagoras found existing or originated for themselves. Aristotle 
has taught us — what Heracleitus and Anaxagoras had not been 
taught — to distinguish separate propositions as universal, par- 
ticular and singular ; and to distinguish pairs of propositions as con- 
trary, sub-contrary, and contradictory. To take the simplest case, 
that of a singular proposition, in regard to which the distinction 
between contrary and contradictory has no application — such as 
the answer (cited above) of Kephisophon about Euripides. Here 
Aristotle would justly contend that the two propositions — 
Euripides is tvitJiin — Euripides is not within — could not be either 
both of them true, or both of them false : that is, that we could 
neither believe both, nor disbelieve both. If Kephisophon had 
answered, Euripides is neither within, nor not within, Dikaeopolis 
would have found himself as much at a loss with the two nega- 
tives as he was with the two affirmatives. In regard to singular 
propositions, neither the doctrine of Heracleitus (to believe both 
affirmation and negation) nor that of Anaxagoras (to disbelieve 
both) is admissible. But when in place of singular propositions, 
we take either universal or particular propositions, the rule to 
follow is no longer so simple and peremptory. The universal 
affirmative and the universal negative are contrary ; the particular 
affirmative and the particular negative are sub-contrary ; the uni- 
versal affirmative and the particular negative, or the universal 
negative and the particular affirmative, are contradictory. It is 
now noted in all manuals of Logic, that of two contrary proposi- 
tions, both cannot be true, but both may be false ; that of two 
sub-contraries, both may be true, but both cannot be false ; and 
that, of two contradictories, one must be true and the other false. 



THE SCHOOLMEN. — DESCARTES. 49 

The Schoolmen. In the mediaeval period the question as to 
the Origin of Knowledge was thrown into the shade by the ques- 
tion as to the nature, and mode of existence, of Universals. Never- 
theless, the different sides were each supported. On the one hand, 
the extreme experience-hypothesis was reduced to the formula 
often quoted since, Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in 
sensu ; on the other, we can see by the argument of Aquinas 
against the theory of knowledge per species — omnium intelligi- 
oilium rationes, animce naturaliter inditas, that some did not shrink 
from the extreme statement of the opposed view. 

It was at the close of the scholastic period, when the question 
of the universals was considered as settled against Eealism (hence- 
forth driven to assume masked forms) and their subjective cha- 
racter, whether in the sense of NoininaHsm or Conceptualism, was 
held to be established, that the problem of the Origin of such 
general ideas before or in experience, started into fuU importance. 
During the whole course of modern thought it has held a first 
place among philosophical questions. 

Descartes heads the modern movement in philosophy, and in 
him we must look for the terms wherein the question was anew 
propounded. First, however, it is weU, even if it were not in his 
case necessary, to indicate shortly his general philosophical position. 

1. Proceeding on the analogy of mathematics, he began by 
seeking a principle, or principles, of indubitable certainty, whereon 
to rear a universal system of knowledge unimpeachable at every 
point : — There is, he declared, not a single thing that I am not 
able to doubt or call in question, save the fact of my own 
doubting. But doubting is thinking, and in thinking is implied 
being or existing : I am, I exist, is, therefore, a proposition neces- 
sarily true every time I pronounce or conceive it ; Cogito ergo sum 
or Ego sum res cogitans is to me the one thing absolutely and for 
ever certain. And not only do I thus know that I am, but, at the 
same time, what I am — a thinking being. Although as yet nothing 
more, this I know with perfect clearness and distinctness. 

2. Next he sought how to pass beyond this primal certainty — 
the simple consciousness of self as a thinking being : — I find in 
me an idea of perfection, or of an all-perfect being called God. 
Like everything else, such an idea must have its cause, for I appre- 
hend, again with perfect clearness and distinctness, that, out of 
nothing, nothing can come. Now, as every cause must involve at 
least as much reality as there is in the effect, an imperfect being 
like myself cannot be the cause of such an idea of perfection. 
"Wherefore it must be derived from a higher source, from such an 
all-powerful and perfect being as it portends, who has stamped it 
as his mark upon my mind : not to say that already in the very 
idea of such a perfect being the attribute of existence is implied 
as necessary to his perfection. Besides self, therefore, I now 
know that God exists, and that he must be the real cause of my 
own existence. 

3. In the Veracity of God, in this way proved to exist, he now 



50 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

found a guarantee of the existence of other beings, and of a 
material universe : — Formerly, no mere thought of mine sufficed 
to prove the existence of other beings or external things ; for any- 
thing I knew, I dreamed, or was the victim of a constant deception. 
But now that I know an all-perfect God to exist, I can be certain 
that everything is as he has constituted me to apprehend it, when, 
that is to say, the apprehension is perfectly clear and distinct. 
Thus, clearly and distinctly apprehending Bodies to be real ex- 
ternal substances, i.e., independent existences with real attributes 
of Figure, Size, and Motion, modes of one universal and insepar- 
able property — Extension, I can be sure that they are such. 
Qualities of colour, sound, heat, &c, on the other hand, I can be 
equally sure do not, as such, belong to the extended objects, 
because, when clearly and distinctly apprehended, they are seen 
to be only varieties of motion in these. 

4. The whole nature of Mind being thus understood, from the 
beginning, as expressed by the one attribute Thought (construed, 
however, as Thinking Substance), and the whole nature of Body, 
at the end, as summed up in the one attribute Extension [Extended 
Substance), he found in the union of Mind and Body in man— in 
man only, for he regarded the lower animals as mere automata — 
an explanation of all such phenomena of appetite, bodily feeling, 
and sensation (colour, sound, &c, just alluded to) as can be re- 
ferred neither to Mind nor to Body, taken simply and apart. 

Such are the main positions of Descartes. His doctrine of 
Intuition, in so far as it is developed, may now be presented in 
the following statements : — 

1. His general method, styled Deduction, whether used in 
rearing the whole edifice of philosophy or applied to special prob- 
lems, requires the positing of certain indemonstrable and self- 
evident truths, in regard to which he himself employs the term 
Intuition. 

2. First among such intuitive principles, and apprehended with 
a clearness and distinctness, to the level of which every other truth 
should be raised, is the certainty of Cogito ergo sum. Another, 
which stands him in even better stead, is Ex nihilo nihil fit. Still 
other examples are : What is done cannot be undone ; It is im- 
possible that the same thing can at once be and not be. Such 
truths are ' eternal,' although in some men they may be obscured 
by prejudice. 

3. Amongst Ideas he distinguishes (1) Innate, (2) Adventitious, 
(3) Factitious or Imaginary. The Innate, e.g., the idea of self as 
existent, of God, &c, are so named because they neither come 
adventitiously by way of sense, nor have the character of volun- 
tary products or fictions of the mind. The idea of God he describes 
as like ' the workman's mark left imprinted on his work.' But, 
at other times, he argues, like many of his successors, for little 
more than innate faculties or modes of thinking, instead of 
thoughts; pre-dispositions to conceive, instead of ready-made 
conceptions. 



ARNAULD. 51 

4. In the Knowledge of an object by sense-perception, there is 
more than a mere passive impression. What is real and constant in 
any object, as a piece of wax, under all conditions of sensible change 
— that it is a Substance, with attributes of Extension, Mobility, 
&c. — is perceived only intellectually, by direct mental inspection or 
intuition. To know such attributes implies the conceiving of an 
infinite possibility of variations of each, something quite beyond 
the scope of Sense, or of Imagination which waits on sense. 

Before passing to Locke — the next great name in the general 
history of Intuition, it is necessary to take some account of others 
of his predecessors. 

In the Cartesian school itself, as in Malebranche, the discus- 
sion of the question was too much complicated with the special 
difficulty of finding a theory of perception or knowledge to 
bridge the chasm fixed by Descartes between mind and matter, 
to permit of its being followed out here. But Aexauld in the 
Port Royal Logic, Chapter I., has a short and simple statement, 
which, as it must have been known to Locke, may be briefly 
noticed. 

1. As to the nature of Ideas, he emphasizes the same dis- 
tinction between Image and Idea, Imagination and Pure Intel- 
lection or Conception, made by Descartes. Things can be clearly 
and distinctly conceived, whereof there is no adequate imagination, 
e.g., a chiliogon; and others, of which there is no imagination 
possible at all, e.g., Thought, Affirmation, God. This remembered, 
no more exact account can be given of what an Idea is, there 
being nothing more clear and simple to explain it by: 'It is 
everything that is in our mind when we can say with truth that 
we can conceive a thing, in whatsoever way it may be conceived.' 

2. As to the Origin of Ideas, he contests the opinion of ■ a 
philosopher of repute ' (Gassendi), that all knowledge begins from 
sense, the rest being an affair of Composition, or Amplification 
and Diminution, or Accommodation and Analogy. [Gassendi, the 
contemporary and rival of Descartes, rejected the Innate theory 
most strenuously, and with an explicitness justifying the inference 
that, apart from Descartes' influence, it was a commonplace in the 
philosophy of the time : Locke's relation to him has often been 
remarked.] To this, Arnauld, in substance, objects, (1) that it is 
not true at all of certain ideas, and (2) that it is not properly true 
of any. First, The simple ideas of Being and Thought (involved 
in the proposition Cogito ergo sum) never entered by any sense, 
and are not compounded from sensible images ; and the same 
is true of the idea of God : the mind has the faculty of forming 
such ideas for itself, and they cannot, without manifest absurdity, 
be referred to sense. In the next place, all that the impression 
on the sense effects, when it is this that does happen to arouse the 
mind, is to give the mind an ' occasion ' to form one idea rather 
than another ; and the idea has very rarely any resemblance to 
what takes place in the sense and in the brain. 

In England, views in strong antithesis to Lccke, were ad- 



52 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

vanced by Cudworth, founding not upon Descartes, but upon 
the ancients ; and, at a still earlier date (even than Descartes), 
by Lord Herbert of Cherbury. 

Cudworth' s views, as explicitly set forth in the treatise on 
Eternal and Immutable Morality, were kept back from publication 
until after Locke's death. It will suffice, therefore, simply to 
remark (1) that (independently of Cartesian influence) he dis- 
tinguishes between Sense and Fancy on the one hand and Intel- 
lection or the Innate Cognoscitive Power of the Soul on the other; 
(2) that he defines this power as a faculty the mind has of raising 
from within itself Intelligible Ideas and Conceptions of things, 
Intelligible Eeasons of things (Rationes), &c. — e.g., Verity, 
Falsity, Cause, Effect, Genus, Species, Nullity, Contingency, 
Impossibility, Justice, Duty, i Nothing can be and not be at the 
same time ' (both as proposition and in every one of its words), 
&c. ; (3) that he understands by knowledge of particular things 
the bringing and comprehending of them under such Rationes, 
and finds that ' scientific knowledge is best acquired by the soul's 
abstraction from the outward objects of sense, that it may the 
better attend to its own inward notions and ideas.' 

Lord Herbert of Cherbury, in his book f Be Veritate' (1624) 
maintains the doctrine of Innate Ideas, under the name of Natural 
Instincts. Instinct is the first of our faculties brought into 
play, as Discursus (the Understanding) is the last ; the senses, both 
external and internal, coming between them. It is the speciality 
of Instinct to work naturaliter (i.e. without Discursus J ; in the 
same way as minerals and vegetables have a faculty of self-pre- 
servation. Notitiaz Communes (nearly equivalent to First Prin- 
ciples) are the product of Natural Instinct. They are sacred 
principles, against which it is unlawful to contend, and are guar- 
anteed by nature itself. If it be a common notion that Nature 
does nothing in vain, it is the same as if Nature herself spake — ' I 
do nothing in vain.' The truth of Common notions is perceived 
immediately, at first sight, so presenting a contrast to the slow and 
uncertain steps of the Discursive faculty. 

How, then, are those notions to be discovered ? It is by ' our 
method,' which Herbert announces with great emphasis. There 
is no Philosophy or Religion so benighted but has its own special 
truth, mingled, it may be, with error; and the pure metal can be 
extracted from the ore by ' our method.' The great criterion, as 
he never wearies of repeating, is universality : what is accepted by 
all men must be true, and can arise from no source except natural 
instinct. Universal consent is to be gathered from laws, religions, 
philosophies, and books. Thus Eeligion is a common notion, for 
there is no nation or age without religion. The next thing to be 
considered is — what points are universally agreed to. This can 
be ascertained only by actually bringing together and sifting all 
religions. If this method (which is the only sure one) be con- 
sidered too laborious, Herbert points out the easier mode of self- 
examination ; if you examine your faculties, you will find God 



CHARACTERS OF COMMON NOTIONS. 53 

and Virtue given as eternal and universal truths. Every truth is 
attested by some faculty, error by none. 

But in this introspection, the distinction must be borne in 
mind between Veritas rei, of which the principium is without 
the mind, and Veritas intellectus, which depends on the mind 
alone ; in fine, between propositions always and everywhere 
true, and propositions true only here and now. [This 
seems to be an approach, in everything except the name, 
to the criterion of necessity afterwards brought forward by 
Leibnitz.] The mind is not a tabula rasa, but rather a closed book, 
that opens on the presentation of objects. Until called forth by 
objects, the common notions are latent. It is folly to suppose 
that they are brought in with the objects ; they exist inde- 
pendently, being placed in us by nature. Nor is it any real diffi- 
culty that we do not understand how those notions are elicited ; 
as little do we understand how touch, or taste, or smell is 
produced. 

All common notions are not independent of Discursus, but such 
as are may be determined by the following characters. (1) 
Priority. Instinct precedes Discursus, and as already observed, is 
in animals the faculty of self-preservation. In a house built with 
regularity, beauty of symmetry is observed by natural instinct, 
long before reason comes in with its estimate of the proportions of 
the parts. (2) Independence. When a common notion has been 
obtained by observation, it may be deducible from some prior 
truth. Thus * Man is an animal' depends for its truth upon the 
ultimate principle, that whatever affects our faculties in the same 
manner, is the same so far as we are concerned. Only the ultimate 
or underived truths are attributed to Natural Instinct. (3) Uni- 
versality (excepting idiots and madmen). (4) Certainty. Those 
principles possess the highest authority, and, if understood, cannot 
be denied. (5) Paramount Utility (NecessitasJ. Without common 
notions, there would be no principle of self-preservation : they are 
therefore essential to the existence of the race or the individual. 
(6) Immediacy. The truth of them is seen, nulla interposita mora. 

John Locke. Locke discusses the subject of innate specula- 
tive principles in his Essay on the Human Understanding, B. I., 
chaps. 2, 4. Innate principles are a class of notions stamped on 
the mind, which the soul brings into the world with it. Are there 
any such ? Certainly not, if it is shown how men may reach all 
the knowledge they have without such ideas. For it would be 
absurd to say that colour was innate in a man that had eyes. 
Locke's refutation paves the way for the fundamental principle of 
his psychology, that all our knowledge and ideas arise from sense 
and reflection. 

1. The first argument for innate ideas is that certain principles 
are admitted as true universally. To this Locke answers, that the 
argument breaks down, (1) if any other way can be pointed out 
whereby this universal assent maybe attained. (2) There are no 
principles universally admitted. Take two that have a high title 



54 APPENDIX— OfilGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

to be considered innate : ' whatever is, is,' and ' it is impossible 
for the same thing to be and not to be.' These propositions are 
to a great part of mankind wholly unknown. They are unknown 
to children and idiots, and so they are not universally accepted. 
It would be a contradiction to say, that those propositions are im- 
printed on the mind, without the mind being conscious of them. 
That an idea is in the understanding, can only mean that it is 
understood. Hence, if there were innate ideas, they ought to be 
present in children and in idiots, as well as in others. 

2. To avoid those exceptions, the universality is affirmed with 
qualifications ; it is said that all men assent to those principles 
when they come to the use of reason. This can only mean either 
that the time of discovering those native inscriptions is when men 
come to the use of reason, or that reason assists in the discovery of 
them. (1) If reason discovered those principles, that would not 
prove them innate ; for by reason we discover many truths that 
are not innate. Eeason, as the faculty of deducing one truth 
from another, plainly cannot lead to innate principles. Eeason 
should no more be necessary to decipher those native inscriptions, 
than to make our eyes perceive visible objects. (2) The coming 
to the use of reason is not the time of first knowing those maxims. 
How many instances have we of the exercise of reason by children 
before they learn that * whatever is, is' ! Many illiterate people 
and savages, long after they come to the use of reason, are alto- 
gether ignorant of maxims so general. Those truths are never 
known before the use of reason, but may possibly be assented to 
some time after during a man's life ; and the same may be said of 
all other knowable truths. (3) If coming to the use of reason 
were the time of discovering the alleged innate notions, it would 
not prove them innate. For why should a notion be innate be- 
cause it is first known when an entirely distinct faculty of the 
mind begins to exert itself ? It would be as good an argument, 
(and as near the truth) to say that those maxims were first 
assented to when men came to the use of speech. 

3. Another form of the argument is, that as soon as the pro- 
positions are heard, and their terms understood, they are assented 
to. Maxims that the mind, without any teaching and at the 
very first proposal, assents to, are surely innate. (1) But assent at 
first hearing is characteristic of a multitude of truths ; such as. 
' one and two are equal to three,' ' two bodies cannot be in the 
same place,' e white is not black,' ' a square is not a circle,' &c. 
To every one of these, every man in his wits must assent at first 
hearing. And since no proposition can be innate, unless the 
ideas composing it be innate, then our ideas of colours, tastes, 
sounds, &c, will be innate. 'Not can it be said that those pro- 
positions about concrete objects are drawn as consequences from 
the more general innate propositions, since the concrete judgments 
are known long before the abstract form. (2) Moreover, the 
argument of assent at first hearing supposes that those maxims 
may be unknown till proposed. For if they were ingrained in 



OBJECTIONS TO INNATE IDEAS. 55 

the mind, why need they be proposed in order to gain assent ? 
Does proposing make them clearer ? Then the teaching of men 
is better than the impression of nature, an opinion not favourable 
to the authority of innate truths. (3) It is sometimes said that 
the mind has an implicit knowledge of those principles, but not 
an explicit, before the first hearing. The only meaning that can 
be assigned to implicit or virtual knowledge, is that the mind is 
capable of knowing those principles. This is equally true of all 
knowledge, whether innate or not. (4) The argument of assent 
on first hearing is on the false supposition of no preceding teach- 
ing. Now, the words, and the meanings of the words, expressing 
the innate ideas, have been learned. And not only so, but the 
ideas that enter into the propositions are also acquired. If, then, 
we take out of a proposition the ideas in it and the words, what 
remains innate ? A child assents to the proposition, ' an apple is 
not fire,' before it understands the terms of the maxim, ' it is 
impossible for the same thing to be and not to be,' and conse- 
quently before it can assent to the more general proposition. In 
conclusion Locke sums up : if there were innate ideas, they would 
be found in all men ; there are no ideas found in all men, hence 
there are no innate ideas. He adds some further considerations 
by way of supporting this conclusion. 

4. Those maxims are not the first known, for children do not 
know them. How explain such ignorance of notions, imprinted 
on the mind in indelible characters, to be the foundation of all 
acquired knowledge ? Children distinguish between the nurse 
and the cat, without the aid of the maxim, that the same thing 
cannot be and not be — for that is a maxim wholly unknown to 
them. If children brought any truths into the world with them, 
such truths ought to appear early, whereas, being made up of 
abstract terms, they appear late. 

5. Innate ideas appear least where what is innate shows itself 
clearest. Children, savages, illiterate people, being the least cor- 
rupted by custom or borrowed opinions, ought to exhibit those 
innate notions — the endowments of nature — with purity and dis- 
tinctness. But those are the very persons most destitute of 
universal principles of knowledge. General maxims are best 
known in the schools and academies, where they help debate, but 
do little to advance knowledge. 

6. In chap. 4, Locke examines some alleged innate ideas. As 
a proposition is made up of ideas, the doctrine of innate maxims 
will be decisively refuted, if it be shown that there are no innate 
ideas. Thus, in the maxim, ' it is impossible for the same thing 
to be and not to be, J Locke asks whether the notions of impossi- 
bility and identity be innate. He illustrates the difficulties in- 
volved in the conception of identity. Is a man, made as he is of 
body and soul, the same man when his body is changed ? Were 
Euphorbus and Pythagoras, who had the same soul, the same 
man, though they lived ages asunder ? And was the cock, that 
shared the soul with them, the same also ? In what sense shall 



56 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

we be the same men, when raised at the resurrection, that we are 
now ? The notion of identity is far from being clear or distinct ; 
can it then be the subject of undoubted and innate truth ? Again 
take the maxim, ' the whole is bigger than a part.' This has a 
fair title to be considered innate. But whole and part have no 
meaning, except as applied to number and extension. If the 
maxim be innate, number and extension must also be innate. 
[Locke stopped here, thinking the point too clear for argument. 
But Kant afterwards adopted the paradox, and upheld the a priori 
character of Space as the corner-stone of his metaphysical con- 
struction.] In like manner, Locke examines whether the ideas of 
Worship and God are innate. In respect of the idea of God, he 
argues the subject at great length, applying most of the con- 
siderations that tell against innate ideas generally. He also dis- 
cusses whether Substance be an innate idea. This idea, he observes, 
we have neither by sensation nor by reflection, and nature might 
with advantage have given it to us. For substance is a most 
confused notion, and is only a something of which we have no dis- 
tinct positive idea, but which we take to be the substratum of our 
ideas. 

Shaftesbury, in England, attempted to turn the edge of 
Locke's objections by declaring (but before Locke, the same had 
been affirmed) that all that was contended for was better expressed 
by the words Connate or Connatural than by the word innate : it 
was true the mind had no knowledge antecedent to experience, 
but it was so constituted or predisposed as inevitably to develop, 
with experience, ideas and truths not explained thereby. 

In Germany, Leibnitz set up an elaborate defence of the In- 
nate Theory, and is commonly represented as having made a dis- 
tinct advance in the discussion of the question by the exceptions 
he took to the criticism of Locke. These are reducible to two. 
(1) He charges Locke with neglecting the difference between 
mere truths of fact or positive truths that may be arrived at by way 
of Inductive Experience, and necessary truths, or truths of demon- 
stration, not to be proved except from principles implanted in the 
mind. (2) He charges Locke farther, with not seeing that innate 
knowledge is saved on simply making the unavoidable assumption 
that the intellect and its faculties are there from the first : ' the 
mind is innate to itself :' ' nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in 
sensu, nisi ipse intellectus.' His detailed objections are to be found 
in his posthumous work, Nouveaux Essais sur Ventendement humain. 

A passage in a letter of Leibnitz's to a friend, gives a good idea 
of the position he took up against Locke. He there says : ' In 
Locke there are various particular truths not badly set forth ; but 
on the main point he is far from being right, and he has not 
caught the nature of the Mind and of Truth. If he had properly 
considered the difference between necessary truths, i.e. those which 
are known by Demonstration, and the truths that we arrive at to 
a certain degree by Induction, he would have seen that necessary 
truths can be proved only from principles implanted in the mind 



NECESSARY TRUTHS AND TRUTHS OF FACT. 57 

— the so-called innate ideas ; because the senses tell indeed what 
happens, but not what necessarily happens. He has also failed to 
observe that the notions of the Existent, of Substance, Identity, 
the True and Good, are innate to our mind for the reason that it 
is innate to itself, and within itself comprehends them all. Mhil 
est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu, nisi ipse intellectus.' 
The Nouveaux Essais is a dialogue, continued through four books, 
corresponding to the books of Locke's essay, between Theophilus 
(Leibnitz himself) and Philalethes, a disciple of Locke. In Book 
I., Theophilus, after announcing that he has taken a new step in 
philosophy, and reached a point of view from which he can recon- 
cile the discrepant views of former thinkers, declares that he goes 
beyond Descartes in accepting an innate idea of God; for rather all 
our thoughts and actions may be said to come from the depths of the 
soul itself without possibility of their being given by the senses. 
He will not, however, go into the demonstration of that at present, 
but content himself with making clear, on the common system, 
that there are ideas and principles that do not come from the 
senses, but are found within the mind, unformed by us, although 
the senses give us occasion to apprehend them. Locke, with all 
his power, failed to see the difference between necessary truths , 
whose source is in the understanding, and truths of fact drawn 
from sense, experience, and confused perceptions. The certitude 
of innate principles (such as, Every thing that is, is ; It is impos- 
sible that a thing should be and not be at the same time) is not to 
be based on the fact of universal consent, which can only be an 
index to, and never a demonstration of, them : it comes only from 
what is in us. Even though unknown, they are not therefore not 
innate, for they are recognized as soon as understood. In the 
mind there is always an infinity of cognitions that are not consci- 
ously apprehended ; and so the fact of their not being always appre- 
hended makes nothing against the existence of (1) the pure ideas 
(opposed to the phantasms of sense) and (2) necessary truths of rea- 
son (in contrast to truths of fact) asserted to be graven on the mind. 
That the necessary truths of Arithmetic and Geometry exist thus 
virtually in the mind appears from the established possibility of 
drawing them forth out of a wholly untutored mind. But, in fine, 
the position to stand by is the difference that there is between neces- 
sary and eternal truths and mere truths of experience. ' The mind 
is able to know the one and the other, but of the first it is the 
source ; and whatever number of particular experiences there may 
be of a universal truth, there can be no perpetual assurance of it, 
except its necessity is known by reason.' Elsewhere he mentions 
as things that the senses cannot give ; ' Substance, the One, the 
Same, Cause, Perception, Reasoning ;' but otherwise merely re- 
peats in different language statements like the above. 

When Philalethes suggests that the ready consent of the mind 
to certain truths is sufficiently explained by the general faculty of 
knowing, Theophilus replies as follows : ' Very true ; but it is 
this particular relation of the human mind to these truths that 



58 



APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 



renders the exercise of the faculty easy and natural with respect 
to them, and causes them to be called innate. It is no naked 
faculty, consisting in the mere possibility of understanding them : 
there is a disposition, an aptitude, a preformation, determining 
our mind and making it possible that they should be drawn forth 
from it. Just as there is a difference between the figures given to 
stone or marble indifferently, and those that its veins mark out 
already or are disposed to mark out if the workman takes advan- 
tage of them.' Farther on, to the objection that there is a diffi- 
culty in conceiving a truth to be in the mind, if the mind has 
never thought of it, he adds : ' It is as if one said that there is 
difficulty in conceiving veins to be in the marble before they are 
discovered.' In these sentences Leibnitz's theory is nearly com- 
pleted. 

After Leibnitz has next to be noticed Kant ;. but his contribu^ 
tion to the history of the present question, as before in the case of 
Descartes, cannot be viewed apart from his general philosophical 
position. Although his whole system, on the speculative side 
at least, may be described as a theory of the Origin of Know- 
ledge, it cannot be properly understood without some preliminary 
reference to other lines of thought. 

1. Kant found himself unable to subscribe to the metaphysical 
dogmatism of the school of Wolff (joining on to Leibnitz) that pre- 
sumed to settle everything without any question of the mind's 
ability to pronounce at once and finally. This on the one hand : 
on the other he was startled by the scepticism of Hume (joining on 
through Berkeley to Locke) with its summary assertion of the 
impotence of human thought. As between the two, he conceived 
the idea of instituting a critical inquiry into the foundations and 
limits of the mind's faculty of knowledge ; in his famous work, 'The 
Critique of the Pure Eeason' (1781). 

2. As here implied in the word 'pure' used of Eeason, or the 
general faculty of knowing, he contended for the inherence in the 
mind, before all experience, of certain principles of knowledge, 
which he called d priori; and thus far was at one with former sup- 
porters of Innate Notions. Farther, with Leibnitz in particular, he 
agreed in taking necessity and universality as the marks or criteria 
of cognitions never to be attained to or explained by experience. 
Cognitions universally and necessarily true, and these not merely 
analytic or verbal (where the predicate only sets forth the implicar 
tion of the subject), but synthetic or real (in which there is an 
extension of knowledge) he found, as he thought, existing in. 
abundance : in Mathematics such, for instance, as 7 ~ff 5 ■== 12; Two 
straight lines cannot enclose a space, &c. ; in Pure Physics, The 
quantity of matter in nature is constant, Action and Eeaction in 
nature are equal ; while the whole of traditional Metaphysics was 
made up of such. Criticism of the foundations and limits of 
human knowledge took with him, then, the special shape of an 
inquiry into the conditions of the possibility of synthetic cognitions a 
priori. 



FORMS OF INTUITIOX. 59 

3. In the peculiar solution that he gave of the old question of 
Innate Knowledge put into this new form, there can be traced the 
influence Hume had upon him from the opposite camp. Hume 
had meanwhile analyzed Causality into mere custom of sequence 
among the impressions of sense, and upon the untrustworthiness 
of such a purely subjective notion had based his general scep- 
ticism. Kant taking his stand upon the body of established 
mathematical truth (synthetic at the same time as necessary), re- 
jected the sceptical conclusion ; but accepting the subjective 
origin of the notion of Causality, proceeded to place all the 
native a priori, or non-empirical elements of knowledge in certain 
subjective or mental 'Farms' destined to enfold, while requiring to be 
supplemented by the 'Matter' of Experience, 

4. The mind, therefore, in Kant's view, has no sort of know- 
ledge antecedent to and independent of experience, as many 
philosophers have more or less boldly asserted; it has, before 
experience, nothing except the f forms' as the moulds into which 
the empirical elements that come primarily by way of sense are 
made to run ; and unless this ' matter' of experience is supplied, 
there is no knowledge of any kind possible. But when the ' mat- 
ter 5 is provided, and the 'forms' are applied to their true and 
appropriate 'matter' — there are, as will be seen, cases wherein 
this does, and others wherein it does not take place — the mind is 
then not bound down to its particular experiences, but can really 
conceive and utter universal and necessary (synthetic) truths that 
no mere experience could ever give. 

The detailed exposition of Kant's theory falls under three 
heads. 

I. — Transcendental ^Esthetic. The impressions of sense are (pas- 
sively) received as empirical ' matter' into certain pure or d priori 
' forms,' distinguished by the special name of ■ Forms of Intuition.' 

1. The data of the internal sense (joy, pain, &c.) fall into, or 
are received as, a series or succession, in Time : the data of the 
external senses are received, directly, as lying outside of us and by 
the side of each other, in Space ; indirectly, in their influence upon 
our internal state, as a succession in Time, 

2. As forms, Space and Time are of non- empirical origin ; they 
cannot be thought away, as everything can that has been 
acquired. They are forms of intuition, in having nothing of the 
chara#er of abstracted concepts. 

3. If they were not a priori, there would be no foundation 
possible for the established (synthetic a priori) truths of Mathe- 
matics and Geometry resting upon the intuition of Space, nor 
for Arithmetic, which, consisting of the repetition or succession of 
units, rests upon the intuition of Time. 

4. How are we enabled actually to construct the pure science 
of Mathematics, made up of synthetic truths a priori, is thus 
to be explained. Because the subjective forms of space or 
Time are mixed up with all our sense-perceptions (intuitions), and 
only such phenomena in Space and Time (not Things-in-themselves 



60 APPENDIX — OKIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

or noumena) are ever open to our intuitive apprehension, we may 
pronounce freely a priori in all that relates to determinations of 
Space and Time, provided it is understood of phenomena, consti- 
tuted by the very addition of these mental forms. 

II. — Transcendental Logic — Analytic. Phenomena (constituted 
out of the \ matter' of sense as ordered in the Forms of Intuition) 
themselves in turn become ' matter,' which the mind, as spon- 
taneously active, combines and orders in the process of Judgment, 
under certain ' forms, ' distinguished by the special name of ' Cate- 
gories of the Understanding.' 

1. These are twelve in number, and discoverable from the com- 
mon analysis of judgments in logic. 

a. Three categories of Quantity: Unity, Plurality, Univer- 
sality (as involved in Singular, Particular, Universal judgments 
respectively). 

b. Three of Quality : Reality, Negation, Limitation (in Posi- 
tive, Negative, Infinite judgments). 

c. Three of Eelation : Substantiality, Causality, Community or 
Reciprocal action (in Categorical, Hypothetical, Disjunctive judg- 
ments). 

d. Three of Modality : Possibility, Existence, Necessity (in 
Problematic, Assertory, Apodeictic judgments). 

2. Until a synthesis of intuitions (perceptions) takes place 
under some one of these pure or a priori concepts, there is no 
Knowledge, or, in the proper meaning of the word, Experience. 
The fact of such a synthesis makes all the difference between the 
mere perception of a particular sequence in the subjective con- 
sciousness, e.g. my having the sense of weight in supporting a 
body, and the objective experience, true for all, The body is heavy. 

3. The reason, now, why we can farther say that no possible 
experience will not come under the Categories, as in saying that 
effects must have a cause— or, which is the same thing, why we are 
enabled to utter synthetic judgments a priori, objectively valid, re- 
garding nature — is this, that without the Categories (forms of the 
spontaneous activity of the pure ego J there cannot be any expe- 
rience at all ; experience, actual or possible, is phenomena bound 
together in the Categories. 

4. But, if we can extend our knowledge beyond actual expe- 
rience because experience is constituted by the Categories of the 
Understanding, the extension is only to be to possible objects of 
experience, which are phenomena in Time and Space ; never to 
Things-in-themselves or Noumena, of which there can be no sen- 
sible (intuitive) apprehension. 

[Kant makes this apparent chiefly by the consideration, under 
the head of ' Schematism of the pure concepts of the Understand- 
ing,' of the conditions under which sensible phenomena can be 
subsumed under the Categories. But we must here forego the ex- 
position of this, and of the system of ' Principles of the pure un- 
derstanding' or (synthetic a priori) Eules for the objective use 
of the Categories, that follows. These, including (1) ' Axioms 



IDEAS OF THE REASON. 61 

of Intuition,' (2) ' Anticipations of Perception, ' (3) 'Analogies of 
Experience ' — Amid all changes of phenomena, Substance abides 
the same, All change obeys the law of Cause and Effect, Substances 
co -existing in space act and re -act upon each other ; (4) ' Postu- 
lates of Empirical Thought ' — are the d priori construction that 
the mind is able to make of a Pure Science, or Metaphysic, of 
Nature. 

Ill . — Transcendental Logic — Dialectic. Besides the Categories of 
the Understanding, there are certain other forms of the thinking 
faculty, according to which the mind seeks to bring its know- 
ledge to higher unities : these are distinguished by the special 
name of ' Ideas of the Reason ' [Reason to be taken here in a nar- 
row sense as opposed to Sense and Understanding], 

1 . The Ideas of the Reason are three in number : (a) The 
(psychological) idea of the Soul, as a thinking substance, immate- 
rial, simple and indestructible ; (b) The (cosmological) idea of the 
World, as a system or connected whole of phenomena; (c) The 
(theological) idea of God, as supreme condition of the possibility 
of all things, the being of beings. 

2. These Ideas of the Reason applied to our Cognitions have 
a true regulative function, being a constant spur towards bringing 
our relative intellectual experience to the higher unity of the 
absolute or unconditioned : but they are not constitutive principles, 
giving any real advance of knowledge, for truly objective know- 
ledge is only of phenomena as possible objects of experience. 

3. Nevertheless, by a law of our mental nature, we cannot 
avoid ascribing an illusory objective reality to these Ideas, making 
thus a ' transcendent' application of the Categories to objects 
there can never be any possible experience of (' transcendent 
of experience' versus 'immanent to experience'): and by this 
' natural dialectic of the Reason,' we become involved in a maze 
of deception or ' transcendental show,' as seen in the Paralogisms 
regarding the metaphysical nature of the soul, the Antinomies or 
contradictory and mutually destructive assertions regarding the 
universe, and the sophistical arguments for the existence of God — 
that make up Metaphysics. 

(The acknowledged powerlessness of the Speculative Reason to 
find conditions for the validity of the synthetic judgments a priori 
of Metaphysics — to prove theoretically the existence of the soul, 
God, &c, Kant overcame by setting forth Immortality, Free-will, 
and God, as postulates of the Practical Reason or Moral Faculty ; 
and the Ideas of the Reason then became of use in helping the 
mind to conceive assumptions that were morally necessary.) 

Besides rousing Kant in Germany to undertake his critical 
inquiries, the general philosophical scepticism of Hume, evoked in 
Scotland a protest of a different kind, in the believing Common- 
sense doctrine of Reid. But of Reid's views there was a singular 
anticipation made by the Jesuit Pere Buffier in 1724, in an attempt 
to refute another and earlier sceptical doctrine, developed out of 
the fundamental principle of Cartesianism. 



62 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

Father Bupfier. Bunier anticipated Eeid, both in the 
doctrine of Common Sense, and in the easy way of bringing truths 
to it. He describes Common Sense as ' that disposition or quality 
which Nature has placed in all men, or evidently in the far greater 
number of them, in order to enable them all, when they have 
arrived at the age and use of reason, to form a common and 
uniform judgment with respect to objects different from the inter- 
nal sentiment of their own perception, and which judgment is not 
the consequence of any anterior principle.' With respect to at 
least some first principles, men in general are as good philosophers 
as Descartes or Locke, for all that they have to decide is a matter of 
fact, namely, whether they cannot help making a particular judg- 
ment. But Bunier does not exclude Philosophy altogether ; on 
the contrary, he gives some marks or tests whereby the dictates 
of common sense may be scientifically ascertained. (1) First prin- 
ciples are so clear that, [ if we attempt to defend or attack them, 
it cannot be done but by propositions which manifestly are neither 
more clear nor more certain. (2) They are so universally received 
amongst men, in all times and countries, and by all degrees of 
capacity, that those who attack them are, comparatively to the 
resfc of mankind, manifestly less than one to a hundred, or even a 
thousand.' (3) However they may be discredited by speculation, 
all men, even such as disavow them, must act in their conduct as 
if they were true. 

The truths that Bunier considers to belong to common sense 
are scattered through his book on ' First Truths.' The basis of 
all knowledge is ' the interior sense we each of us have of our own 
existence, and what we feel within ourselves.' Every attempt to 
prove this truth only makes it darker. In like manner, the idea 
of unity (personality) is a first truth. Our identity follows from 
our unity or indivisibility. In opposition to Malebranche, who 
asserts that mind cannot act upon body, Bunier maintains as a 
first truth, that my soul produces motions in my body. 

Among first truths are included the following: — (1) 'There 
are other beings and other men in the world besides me. (2) There 
is in them something that is called truth, wisdom, prudence ; and 
this something is not merely arbitrary. (3) There is in me some- 
thing that I call intelligence or mind, and something which is not 
that intelligence or mind, and which is named body; so that each 
possesses properties different from the other. (4) "What is generally 
said and thought by men in all ages and countries, is true. (5) 
All men have not combined to deceive and impose upon me. (6) 
All that I see, in which is found order, and a permanent, uniform, 
and constant order, must have an intelligence for its cause.' 

What may hold the place of first truths in the testimony of the 
senses ? Bunier' s answer shows great laxity in the selection of 
first truths. (1) 'They (the senses) always give a faithful report 
of things as they appear to them. (2) What appears to them is 
almost always conformable to the truth in matters proper for men 
in general to know, unless some rational cause of doubt presents 



REID —MEANING OF COMMON SENSE. 63 

itself. (3) It -will be easy to discern when the evidence of the 
senses is doubtful, by the reflections we shall point out.' Another 
first truth is that a thing may be impossible although we see no 
contradiction in it. Again, the validity of testimony in certain 
cases, is a first truth ; there are circumstances wherein no rational 
man could reject the testimony of other men. Also the free 
agency of man is a first truth ; free will is ' the disposition a man 
feels within himself, of his capacity to act or not to act, to choose 
or not to choose a. thing, at the same moment.' 

Dr. Thomas Beid. The word Sense, as used by Philosophers, 
from Locke to Hutcheson, has signified a means of furnishing our 
minds with ideas, without including judgment, which is the per- 
ception of agreement or disagreement of our ideas. But, in 
common language, Sense always implies judgment. Common 
Sense is the degree of judgment common to men that we 
can converse and transact business with, or call to account for 
their conduct. c To judge of First Principles requires no more 
than a sound mind free from prejudice, and a distinct conception 
of the question. The learned and the unlearned, the philosopher 
and the day-labourer, are upon a level, and will pass the same 
judgment, when they are not misled by some bias.' A man is not 
now moved by the subtle arguments of Zeno against motion, 
though, perhaps, he knows not how to answer them. 

Although First Principles are self-evident, and not to be proved 
by any arguments, still a certain kind of reasoning maybe applied 
in their support. (1) To show that the principle rejected stands 
upon the same footing with others that are admitted. (2) As in 
Mathematics, the reductio ad absurdum may be employed. (3) 
The consent of ages and nations, of the learned and unlearned, 
ought to have great authority with regard to first principles, 
where every man is a competent judge. (4) Opinions that appear 
so early in the mind, that they cannot be the effect of education 
or of false reasoning, have a good claim to be considered as first 
principles. 

Eeid asks whether the decisions of Common Sense can be 
brought into a code such as all reasonable men shall acquiesce in. 
He acknowledges the difficulty of the task, and does not profess 
that his own enumeration is perfectly satisfactory. His classi- 
fication proceeds on the distinction between necessary and con- 
tingent truths. That a cone is the third part of a cylinder, of 
the same base and height, is a necessary truth. It does not 
depend upon the will and power of any being. That the Sun is 
the centre of the planetary system is a contingent truth; it 
depends on the power and will of the Being that made the 
planets. 

I. — Principles of Contingent Truth. (1) Everything that I 
am conscious of exists. The irresistible conviction we have of the 
reality of what we are conscious of, is not the effect of reasoning ; 
it is immediate and intuitive, and therefore a first principle. (2) 
The thoughts that I am conscious of, are the thoughts of a being 



64 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

that I call myself, my mind, my person. (3) Those things did 
really happen that I distinctly remember. (4) Our own personal 
identity and continued existence, as far back as we remember 
anything distinctly. (5) Those things do really exist that we 
distinctly perceive by our senses, and are what we perceive them 
to be. [This is Dr. Eeid's theory of the external world elevated to 
the dignity of a first principle.] (6) We have some degree of 
power over our actions and the determinations of our will. The 
origin of our idea of power is not easily assigned. Power is not 
an object of sense or consciousness. "We see events as successive, 
but not the power whereby they sire produced. "We are conscious 
of the operations of our minds ; but power is not an operation 
of mind. It is, however, implied in every act of volition, and in 
all deliberation and resolution. Likewise, when we approve or 
disapprove, we believe that men have power to do or not to do. 
(7) The natural faculties, whereby we distinguish truth from 
error, are not fallacious. (8) Our fellow-men with whom we 
converse are possessed of life and intelligence. (9) Certain 
features of the countenance, sounds of the voice, and gestures of 
the body, indicate certain thoughts and dispositions of mind. 
The signification of those things we do not learn by experience, 
but by a kind of natural perception. Children, almost as soon as 
born, may be frightened by an angry or threatening tone of 
voice. (10) There is a certain regard due to human testimony in 
matters of fact, and even to human authority in matters of 
opinion. (11) There are many events depending on the will of 
man, possessing a self-evident probability, greater or less, 
according to circumstances. In men of sound mind, we expect a 
certain degree of regularity in their conduct. (12) In the phe- 
nomena of nature, what is to be, will probably be like what has 
been in similar circumstances. Hume has shown that this prin- 
ciple is not grounded on reason, and has not the intuitive evidence 
of mathematical axioms. 

II. — Principles of Necessary Truth. In regard to those, Eeid 
thinks it enough to divide them into classes, and to mention some 
by way of specimen in each class. 

1. Grammatical Principles. (1) Every adjective in a sentence 
must belong to some substantive expressed or understood. (2) 
Every complete sentence must have a verb. 

2. Logical Principles. (1) Any contexture of words, that does 
not make a proposition, is neither true nor false. (2) Every pro- 
position is either true or false. (3) No proposition can be both 
true and false at the same time. (4) Eeasoning in a circle proves 
nothing. (5) Whatever may be truly affirmed of a genus, may be 
truly affirmed of all its species, and of all the individuals belonging 
to that species. 

3. The Mathematical Axioms. 

4. The Principles of Taste. Setting aside the tastes acquired 
by habit and fashion, there is a natural taste, that is partly 
animal and partly rational. Eational taste is the pleasure of 



ENUMERATION OF FIRST PRINCIPLES. 65 

contemplating what is conceived as excellent in its kind. This 
taste may be true or false, according as it is founded on true 
or false judgment. If it may be true or false, it must have first 
principles. Natural taste is the pleasure or disgust arising from 
certain objects before we are capable of perceiving any excellence 
or defect in them. 

5. First Principles in Morals. (1) An unjust action has more 
demerit than an ungenerous one. (2) A generous action has 
more merit than a merely just one. (3) No man ought to be 
blamed for what it was not in his power to hinder. (4) We 
ought not to do to others what we should think unjust or unfair 
to be done to us in like circumstances. [By endeavouring to make 
the golden rule more precise, Eeid has converted it into an iden- 
tical proposition.] 

6. Metaphysical Principles. (1) The qualities that we per- 
ceive by our senses must have a subject (which we call body), and 
the thoughts we are conscious of must have a subject (which we 
call mind). The distinction between sensible qualities, and the 
substance to which they belong, is not the invention of philo- 
sophers, but is found in the structure of all languages. (2) What- 
ever begins to exist must have a cause. (3) Design and intelli- 
gence in the cause may be inferred with certainty, from marks 
or signs of them in the effect. 

7. We may refer to some of the necessary truths regarding 
Matter. (1) All bodies must consist of parts. (2) Two bodies 
cannot occupy the same place at the same time. (3) The same 
body camiot be in different places at the same time. (4) A body 
cannot be moved from one place to another without passing 
through intermediate space. 

We may add also some of the First Principles connected with the 
Senses. (1) A certain sensation of touch suggests to the mind 
the conception of hardness, and creates the belief of its existence. 
(2) The notion of extension is suggested by feelings of touch, but 
is not given us by any sense, (3) It is by instinct we know the 
part of our body affected by particular pains. 

Dtjgald Stewart. The chief point wherein Stewart departs 
from Eeid in the treatment of the Fundamental Laws of Belief 
(as he prefers to call the dictates of Common Sense), is in regard 
to Mathematical demonstration. 

1. Mathematical Axioms. On this subject Stewart follows 
Locke in preference to Eeid. Locke observes that, although the 
axioms are appealed to in proof of particular cases, yet they are 
only verbal generalizations of what, in particular instances, has 
been already acknowledged as true. Also many of the maxims 
are mere verbal propositions, explaining only the meaning of 
words. Stewart quotes Dr. Campbell to the effect that all axioms 
in Arithmetic and Geometry are identical propositions — reducible 
to the maxim ' whatever is, is.' That one and four make five 
means that five is the name of one added to four. To this doctrine 
Stewart adheres so far as Arithmetic is concerned. In Algebra 
52 



66 APPENDIX — OBIGIN OE KNOWLEDGE. 

and Arithmetic, ' All our investigations amount to nothing more, 
than to a comparison of different expressions of the same thing. 
But the axioms of Euclid are not definitions, they are universal 
propositions applicable to an infinite variety of instances. Eeid 
said that the axioms are necessary truths ; and so the conclusions 
drawn from them were necessary. But, as was observed by Locke, 
it is impossible to deduce from the axioms a single inference. The 
axioms cannot be compared with the first Principles of Natural 
Philosophy, such as the laws of motion, from which the subordi- 
nate truths of that science are derived. The principles of Mathe- 
matics are, not the axioms, but the definitions. ' Yet although 
nothing is deduced from the axioms, they are nevertheless im- 
plied and taken for granted in all our reasonings ; without them 
we could not advance a step.' [In a note Stewart observes that by 
the Axioms he does not mean all those prefixed to Euclid, which 
include the definition of parallel lines. He considers it a reproach 
to Mathematics that the so-called Axiom regarding parallel lines 
has not been made the subject of demonstration.] 

2. Mathematical Demonstration. Demonstrative evidence, the 
characteristic of mathematics, has arrested universal attention, but 
has not been satisfactorily explained. The true account of mathe- 
matical demonstration seems to be — that it flows from the defini- 
tions. In other sciences, the propositions we attempt to prove 
express facts real or supposed ; in mathematics, the propositions 
assert merely a connexion between certain suppositions and certain 
consequences. The whole object is to trace the consequences 
flowing from an assumed hypothesis. In the same manner, we 
might devise arbitrary definitions about moral or political ideas, 
and deduce from them a science as certain as geometry. The 
science of mechanics is an actual instance, * in which, from arbi- 
trary hypotheses concerning physical laws, the consequences are 
traced which would follow, if such was really the order of nature.' 
In the same way, a code of law might consist of rules strictly 
deduced from certain principles, with much of the method and all 
the certainty of geometry. The reasoning of the mathematician 
is true only of his hypothetical circle ; if applied to a figure de- 
scribed on paper, it would fail, because all the radii could not be 
proved to be exactly equal. The peculiar certainty of mathematics 
thus rests upon the definitions, which are hypotheses and not des- 
criptions of facts. 

Stewart considers that the certainty of arithmetic is likewise 
derived from hypotheses or definitions. That 2 -J- 2 = 4, and 
3 + 2 = 5, are definitions analogous to those in Euclid, and 
forming the material of all the complicated results in the science. 
But he objects to the theory of Leibnitz, that all mathema- 
tical truths are identical propositions. The plausibility of this 
theory arises from the fact, that the geometrical notions of 
equality and of coincidence are the same; all the propositions 
ultimately resting upon an imaginary application of one triangle 
to another. As superimposed figures occupy the same space, it 



STEWART — INSTINCTIVE BELIEFS. 67 

was easy to slide into the belief that identity and equality were 
convertible terms. Hence it is said, all mathematical propositions 
are reducible to the form, a = a. But this form does not truly 
render the meaning of the proposition, 2 + 2 = 4. 

3. The other Laws of Belief resemble the axioms of Geometry 
in two respects : 1st, they do not enlarge our knowledge ; and 
secondly, they are implied or involved in all our reasonings. 
Stewart advances two objections to the phrase — principles of 
common sense: it designates, as principles, laws of belief from 
which no inference can be deduced; and secondly, it refers the 
origin of these laws to common sense, a phraseology that he 
considers unfit for the logician, and unwarranted by ordinary 
usage. 

Stewart defends the alleged instinctive power of interpreting 
certain expressions of the countenance, certain gestures of the 
body, and certain tones of the voice. This had been resolved by 
Priestley into associated experiences : but, for the other opinion, 
Stewart offers two reasons: (1) Children understand the meaning 
of smiles and frowns long before they could remark the connexion 
between a passion and its expression. (2) We are more affected 
by natural signs than by artificial ones. One is more affected by 
the facial expression of hatred than by the word hatred. 

Another instinct adduced by Stewart, is what he calls the law 
of Sympathetic Imitation, This is contrasted with the intentional 
imitation of a scholar ; it depends ' on the mimical powers con- 
nected with our bodily frame.' If we see a man laughing or sad, 
we have a tendency to take on the expression of those states. So 
yawning is contagious. ( Even when we conceive in solitude the 
expression of any passion, the effect of the conception is visible in 
our own appearance.' Also, we imitate instinctively the tones 
and accents of our companions. As we advance in years, this 
propensity to imitation grows weaker. 

Sir W. Hamilton. I. — Common Sense. All reasoning comes at 
last to principles that cannot be proved, but are the basis of all 
proof. Such primary facts rest upon consciousness. To what 
extent, then, is consciousness an infallible authority ? What we 
are actually conscious of, it is impossible for scepticism to doubt ; 
but the dicta of consciousness, as evidence of facts beyond their 
own existence, may without self-contradiction be disputed. Thus, 
the reality of our perceptions of solidity and extension is beyond 
controversy ; but the reality of an external world, evidenced by 
these, may be doubted. Common Sense consists of all the original 
data of Consciousness. 

'The argument from Common Sense is one strictly philoso- 
phical and scientific.' The decision is not refused to the judgment 
of philosophers and accorded to the verdict of the vulgar. The 
problem of philosophy, and a difficult one, is to discover the 
elementary feelings or beliefs. This task cannot be taken out of 
the hands of philosophers. Sometimes the purport of the doctrine 
of Common Sense has been misunderstood, and it has been 









68 APPENDIX— OKIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE, 

regarded as an appeal to J the undeveloped beliefs of the unre- 
flecting many.' Into this error fell Beattie, Oswald, and, in his 
earlier work, even Keid. But Hamilton alleges that Beid improves 
in his subsequent works, and that his treatment of Casuality with 
reference to the criterion of necessity, shows that he did not con- 
template any uncritical appeal to Common Sense. 

The criteria of the principles of Common Sense are these : — 
1. Incomprehensibility [an inapt word for expressing that they are 
fundamental and not to be explained by reference to anything 
else], 2. Simplicity [another name for the same fact]. 3. Neces- 
sity, and Absolute Universality. 4. Certainty [what is both neces- 
sary and universal must be certain. Hence in reality the four 
criteria consist of (1) the defining attribute of the principles, 
namely, that they are ultimate principles, and (2) the usually 
assigned attributes — Necessity and Universality]. 

Hamilton assigns historically three epochs in the meaning of 
Necessity : — (1) In the Aristotelian epoch, it was chiefly, if not 
exclusively, objective. (2) By Leibnitz, it was considered prim- 
arily as subjective. (3) By Hamilton himself, Necessity is farther 
developed into the two forms, positive and negative necessity ; the 
application appears under the next head. 

II. — The Law of the Conditioned. Necessity may be the result 
either of a power (positive J, or of an impotency (negative J of the 
mind. In Perception, I cannot but think that I, and something 
different from me, exist. Existence is thus a native cognition, for 
it is a condition of thinking that all that I am conscious of exists. 
Other positive notions are the Logical Principles, the intuitions of 
Space and Time, &c. But there are negative cognitions the result 
of an impotence of our faculties. Hence the Law of the Con- 
ditioned, which is expressed thus : — ' All that is conceivable in 
thought lies between two extremes, which, as contradictory of 
each other, cannot both be true, but of which, as mutual contra- 
dictories, one must.' Thus Space must be bounded or not bounded, 
but we are unable to conceive either alternative. "We cannot con- 
ceive space as a whole, beyond which there is no further space. 
Neither can we conceive space as without limits. Let us imagine 
space never so large, we yet fall infinitely short of infinite space. 
But finite and infinite space are contradictories; therefore, although 
we are unable to conceive either alternative, one must be true and 
the other false. The conception of Time illustrates the same law. 
Starting from the present, we cannot think past time as bounded, 
as beginning to be. On the other hand, we cannot conceive time 
going backwards without end ; eternity is too big for our imagi- 
nation. Yet time had either a beginning or it had not. Thus 
■' the conditioned or the thinkable lies between two extremes or 
poles ; and these extremes or poles are each of them unconditioned, 
each of them inconceivable, each of them exclusive or contradic- 
tory of the other. * 

The chief applications of the Law of the Conditioned are to the 
Principles of Causality and Substance. Take first Causality. 



HAMILTON'S LAW OF THE CONDITIONED. 69 

Causality is the law of the Conditioned applied to a thing thought 
as existing in time. No object can be known unless thought as ex- 
istent ; and in time. Thinking the object, we cannot think it not to 
exist. This will be admitted of the present, but possibly denied of 
the past and future, under the belief that we can think annihilation 
or creation. But we cannot conceive an atom taken from the sum 
of existing objects. No more can we conceive creation. For what 
is creation ? ' It is not the springing of nothing into something. 
Far from it : — it is conceived, and is by us conceivable, merely as 
the evolution of a new form of existence, by the fiat of the Deity.' 
We are therefore unable to annihilate in thought any object ; we 
cannot conceive its absolute commencement. Given an object we 
know that as a phenomenon it began to be, but we must think it 
as existing previously in its elements. If then the object existed 
before in a different form, this is only to say that it had causes. 
Thus the law of the conditioned shows us that every phenomenon 
must have some causes, but what those causes are must be learned 
from experience. Granting his theory of Causality, Hamilton 
thinks that he is armed with a philosophical defence of the free- 
dom of the will. He points out the contradictions of his prede- 
cessors, who held that every change had a cause, but excepted the 
changes of volition. If our moral consciousness give us freedom, 
and our intellectual consciousness give us universal causation, 
it follows that our faculty of knowledge is self contradictory. 
By regarding Causality as founded on an impotence of the 
mind, Hamilton thinks that such a negative judgment cannot 
prevail against the positive testimony of consciousness. 

Hamilton has not applied the law of the Conditioned, with 
much detail, to the principle of Substance. The problem is — 
Why must I suppose that every known phenomenon is related to 
an unknown substance ? We cannot think a phenomenon without 
a substance, nor a substance without a phenomenon. Take an 
object; strip it of all its qualities ; and try to think the residuary 
substance. It is unthinkable. In the same way, try to think a 
quality as a quality, and nothing more. It is unthinkable, except 
as a phenomenon of something that does not appear ; as, in short, 
the accident of a substance. This is the law of Substance and 
Phenomenon, and is merely an instance of the law of the con- 
ditioned. 

John* Stuart Mill. Mr. Mill's views on necessary truths 
are contained in his Logic, Book II. , chaps. 5 — 7. He begins by 
asking why, if the foundation of all science is Induction, a peculiar 
certainty is ascribed to the sciences that are almost entirely de- 
ductive. The character of certainty and necessity attributed to 
mathematical truths is an illusion ; and depends upon ascribing 
them to purely imaginary objects. There exist no points without 
magnitude ; no lines without breadth, nor perfectly straight. In 
answer to this, it is said that the points and lines exist in our 
conceptions merely ; but the ideal lines and figures are copies of 
actual Hnes and figures. Now a point is the minimum visible, A 



70 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

geometrical line is inconceivable. Mr. Mill agrees with. Dugald 
Stewart in regarding geometry as built upon hypotheses. The 
definitions of geometry are generalizations, obviously easy, of the 
properties of lines and figures. The conclusions of geometry are 
necessary, only as implicated in the suppositions from which they 
are evolved. The suppositions themselves merely approximate 
(though practically with sufficient accuracy) to the actual truth. 
That axioms as well as definitions must be admitted among the 
first principles, has been shewn by Whewell in his polemic against 
Stewart, Two axioms must be postulated : that two straight 
lines cannot inclose a space, and some property of parallel lines 
not involved in their definition. Eegarding the foundation of the 
axioms, two views are held ; one that they are experimental truths 
resting on observation ; the other that they are a 'priori truths. 
The chief arguments in support of the a priori theory are the 
following : — 

I. — In the first place, if our belief that two straight lines cannot 
enclose a space, were derived from the senses, we could know the 
truth of the proposition only by seeing or feeling the straight 
lines ; whereas it is seen to be true by merely thinking of them. 
By simply thinking of a stone thrown into the water, we could 
not conclude that it would go to the bottom. On the contrary, if 
I could be made to conceive a straight line without having seen 
one, I should at once know that two such lines cannot enclose a 
space. Moreover, the senses cannot assure us that, if two straight 
lines were prolonged to infinity, they would continue for ever to 
diverge. 

The answer to these arguments is found in the capacity of 
geometrical forms for being painted in the imagination with a dis- 
tinctness equal to reality. This enables us to make mental pic- 
tures of all combinations of lines and angles so closely resembling 
the realities, as to be as fit subjects of geometrical experimenta- 
tion as the realities themselves. If, then, by mere thinking we 
satisfy ourselves of the truth of an axiom, it is because we know 
that the imaginary lines perfectly represent the real ones, and 
that we may conclude from them to real ones, as we may from 
one real line to another. Thus, although we cannot follow two 
diverging lines by the eye to infinity, yet we know that, if they 
begin to converge, it must be at a finite distance ; thither we can 
follow them in imagination, and satisfy ourselves that if the lines 
begin to approach, they will not be straight, but curved. 

II. — The second argument is, that the axioms are conceived as 
universally and necessarily true. Experience cannot give to any 
proposition the character of necessity. The meaning of a necessary 
truth, as explained by Dr. Whewell, is a proposition the negation 
of which is not only false but inconceivable. The test of a neces- 
sary truth is the inconceivableness of the counter proposition. 
The power of conceiving depends very much on our constant 
experience, and familiar habits of thought. When two things 
have often been seen and thought of together, and never in any 



THE AXIOMS OF MATHEMATICS. 71 

instance seen or thought of separately, there is an increasing 
difficulty (which may in the end become insuperable) of conceiving 
the two things apart. Thus, the existence of antipodes was denied, 
because men could not conceive gravity acting upwards as well 
as downwards. The Cartesians rejected the law of gravitation, 
because they could not conceive a body acting where it was not. 
The inconceivability wiU be strongest where the experience is 
oldest and most familiar, and where nothing ever occurs to shake 
our conviction, or even to suggest an exception. It is thus, from 
the effect of constant association, that we are unable to conceive 
the reverse of the axioms. We have not even an analogy to help 
us to conceive two straight lines enclosing a space. Nay, when 
we imagine two straight lines, in order to conceive them enclosing 
a space, we repeat the very experiment that establishes the con- 
trary. For it has been shown that imaginary lines serve as well 
for proving geometrical truths as Hnes in actual objects. 

Dr. Whewell has illustrated in his own person the tendency 
of habitual association to make an experimental truth appear 
necessary. He continuaUy asserts that propositions, known to 
have been discovered by genius and labour, appear, when once 
established, so self-evident, that, but for historical proof, we 
should believe that they would be recognized as necessarily true. 
He says, that the first law of motion might have been known to 
be true independently of experience, and that, at some future 
time, chemists may possibly come to see that the law of chemical 
combination in definite proportions is a necessary truth. 

The logical basis of Arithmetic and Algebra, In Chapter VI., 
Mr. Mill examines the nature of arithmetic and algebra. The 
first theory that he examines is founded upon extreme Nominalism. 
It asserts that aU the propositions in arithmetic are merely verbal, 
and that its processes are but the ringing of changes on a few 
expressions. But how, if the processes of arithmetic are mere 
substitutions of one expression of fact for another, does the fact 
itself come out changed ? It is no doubt the peculiarity of arith- 
metic and algebra that they are the crowning example of symboH- 
cal thinking— that is, reasoning by signs, without carrying along 
with us the ideas represented by the signs. Algebra represents 
aU numbers without distinction, investigating their modes of 
combination. Since, then, algebra is true, not merely of lines 
and angles like geometry, but of all things in nature, it is no 
wonder that the symbols should not excite in our minds ideas of 
any particular thing. 

Mr. Mill denies that the definitions of the several numbers 
express only the meaning of words ; like the so-called definitions 
of Geometry, they likewise involve an observed matter of fact. 

Arithmetic is based upon inductions, and these are of two 
kinds : first, the definitions (improperly so called) of the numbers, 
and, secondly, the axioms — The sums of equals are equal; The differ- 
ences of equals are equal. The inductions are strictly true of all 
objects, although a hypothetical element maybe involved ; the unit 






72 APPENDIX— ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

of the numbers must be the same or equal. One pound added to 
one pound will not make two pounds, if one pound be troy and the 
other avoirdupois. Mathematical certainty is certainty of infer- 
ence or implication. Conclusions are true hypothetically ; how 
far the hypothesis is true is left for separate consideration. It is 
of course practicable to arrive at new conclusions from assumed 
facts, as well as from observed facts ; Descartes' theory of vortices 
being a pertinent example. 

Criticism of Spencer's Theory, Mr. Spencer agrees with Mr. 
Mill in regarding the axioms as * simply our earliest inductions 
from experience,' but he holds that inconceivableness is the ulti- 
mate test of all belief. And for two reasons. A belief held by 
all persons at all times ought to rank as a primitive truth. 
Secondly, the test of universal or invariable belief, is our inability 
to conceive the alleged truth as false. I believe that I feel cold, 
because I cannot conceive that I am not. So far Mr. Spencer, 
agrees with the intuitive school, but he differs from that school in 
holding the fallibility of the test of inconceivableness. It is itself 
an infallible test, but is liable to erroneous application ; and occa- 
sional failure is incident to all tests. Mr. Spencer's doctrine, 
therefore, does not erect the curable, but only the incurable 
limitations of the conceptive faculty into laws of the outward 
universe. 

Mr. Spencer's arguments for the test of inconceivableness are. 
two in number. (1) Every invariable belief represents the aggre- 
gate of all past experience. The inconceivableness of a thing 
implies that it is wholly at variance with all that is inscribed on 
the register of human experience. Mr. Mill answers, even if this 
test of inconceivableness represents our experience, why resort to 
it when we can go at once to experience itself ? Uniformity of 
experience is itself far from being universally a criterion of truth ; 
and inconceivableness is still farther from being a test of unifor- 
mity of experience. (2) Whether inconceivability be good evidence 
or bad, no stronger evidence is to be obtained. In Mr. Spencer's 
use of the word 'inconceivable,' there is an ambiguity whence 
has been derived much of the plausibility of his argument. Incon- 
ceivableness may signify inability to get rid of an idea, or inability 
to get rid of a belief. It was in the second sense, not in the first, 
that antipodes were inconceivable. It is in the first sense that we 
cannot conceive an end to space. In Mr. Spencer's argument, 
inconceivable really means unbelievable. 6 When Mr. Spencer says 
that while looking at the sun a man cannot conceive that he is 
looking into darkness, he means a man cannot believe that he is 
doing so.' Now, many have disbelieved the externality of matter, 
even although they may have been unable to imagine tangible 
objects as mere states of consciousness. One may be unable to 
get rid of the idea of externality, and nevertheless regard it as an 
illusion. Thus we believe that the earth moves, and not the sun, 
although we constantly conceive the sun as. rising and setting, and 
the earth as motionless. Whether then we mean by inconceivable- 



MANSEL ON THE AXIOMS. 73 

ness, inability to get rid of an idea or inability to get rid of 
a belief, Mr. Spencer's argument fails to be convincing. 

Heistry L. Mansel. Mr. Mansel has examined the subject of 
Intuition in his Prolegomena Logica, Chap. III. — VI., and in his 
Metaphysics. He takes up four kinds of necessity : mathematical, 
metaphysical, logical, and moral. He, to a great degree, follows 
Kant and Sir W. Hamilton. 

I. — Mathematical Necessity. Mr. Mansel adopts the cri- 
terion of Necessity, enounced by Leibnitz. "Whatever truths we 
must admit as everywhere and always necessary, must arise, not 
from observation, but from the constitution of the mind. Attempts 
have indeed been made to explain this necessity by a constant 
association of ideas, but associations, however frequent and uni- 
form, fail to produce a higher conviction than one of mere 
physical necessity. 

1. The Axioms of Geometry., The axioms of Geometry contain 
both analytical and synthetical judgments, (the distinction corre- 
sponding to Mill's verbal and real propositions).* 

It is upon the synthetical judgments that the dispute turns. 
Are those axioms a "priori, or derived from experience ? Mr. Mansel 
says that Mr. Mill's argument contradicts the direct evidence of 
consciousness, and, however powerful as anargumentum ad hominem 
against Dr. Whewell, fails to meet the real question at issue. 
' What is required is to account, not for the necessity of geome- 
trical axioms as truths relating to objects without the mind, but as 
thoughts relating to objects within.' 'Why must I invest ima- 
ginary objects with attributes not contained in the definition of 
them ? I can imagine the sun remaining continually fixed in the 
meridian, or a stone sinking 99 times and floating the 100th ; and 
yet my experience of the contrary is as invariable as my experience 
of the geometrical properties of bodies. 5 Why then do we attri- 
bute a higher necessity to the axioms of Geometry ? The answer 
is taken direct from Kant. It is because space is itself an a priori 
notion, not derived from without, but part of the original furniture 
of the mind. The author here draws a distinction between the part 
played by imagination in empirical and in necessary judgments. 
In empirical judgments, its value depends upon the fidelity of 
its adherency to the original. Geometrical truths, on the 
other hand, are absolutely true of the objects of imagination, but 
only nearly true of real objects. The reason is, that the truths 
of physical science depend on experience alone, but geometry 
relates to the figures of that a priori space, which is the indis- 
pensable condition of all experience. 

2. Arithmetic. Arithmetic is richly, as geometry is scantily, 

* Analytical judgments are : * The whole is greater than its part ; ' 
1 If equals be added to equals, the sums are equal ; ' ' Things that are 
equal to the same are equal to each other.' Synthetical judgments 
are : i A straight line is the shortest distance between two points ; * ' Two 
straight lines which, being met by a third, make the interior angles less 
than two right angles, will meet, if produced.' 






74 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE* 

supplied with d priori principles. * It is not by reasoning we 
learn that two and two make four, nor from this proposition can 
we in any way deduce that four and two make six.' We must 
have recourse in each separate case to the senses or the imagina- 
tion, and, by presenting to the one or to the other a number of 
individual objects corresponding to each term separately, envisage 
the resulting sum.* 

No number is capable of definition. Six cannot be defined as 
5 + 1. In this view of Arithmetic, Mansel remarks that he differs 
from Leibnitz, Hegel, and Mill. [It is not proper to put Mill 
along with Leibnitz in this connexion.] 

II. — Metaphysical Necessity. Metaphysics, as well as 
Mathematics, has been regarded as possessed of Synthetical judg- 
ments. Two are selected, for examination, the Principles of 
Substance and Causality. 

1 . The Principle of Substance is that all obj ects of perception are 
qualities that exist in some subj ect to which they belong. Beid said 
a ball has colour and figure, but it is not colour and figure; it is 
something that has colour and figure, — it is a substance. Berkeley 
thought it more consonant even with common sense to reject this im- 
perceptible support of perceived attributes. Hume observed that, 
as we are conscious of nothing but impressions and ideas, we may 
as well throw away the barren figment of Mind. In opposition to 
this, Eeid appealed to the Principle of Substance as a dictate of com- 
mon sense. But are we conscious of substance ? Eeid and Stewart 
have again and again conceded that we are not ; they have conse- 
quently abandoned the only position from which a successful attack 
could be made on either Berkeley or Hume. Mr. Mansel therefore, 
after Maine de Biran, afiirms that we are immediately conscious of 
Self as substance. The one intuited substance is myself, in the form 
of a power conscious of itself. The notion of substance,, thus 
derived, may be applied to other conscious beings, but not farther. 
In regard to physical phenomena, we have no positive notion of 
substance other than the phenomena themselves. Mr. Mansel is 
thus unable to prove substance against Berkeley, but he nevertheless 
complains that Berkeley denied, instead of merely doubting,, the 
existence of matter. In conclusion, it is not a necessary truth that 
all sensible qualities belong to a subject. 'Nor is it correct to 
call it a fundamental law of human belief ; if by that expression is 
meant anything more than an assertion of the universal tendency 
of men to liken other things to themselves, and to speak of them 
under forms of expression adapted to such likeness, far beyond the 
point where the parallel fails.' 

* In a note, Mr. Mansel adds, ' The real point at issue is not whether 
4 and 2 -f- 2 are at bottom identical — so that both being given, an analysis 
of each will ultimately show their correspondence ; but whether the for- 
mer notion, definition and all, is contained in the latter. In other words, 
whether a man who has never learned to count beyond two, could obtain 
3, 4, 5, and all higher numbers, by mere dissection of the numbers which 
he possesses already.' 



CAUSALITY. 75 

2. The Principle of Causality. — Whatever begins to exist must 
take place in consequence of some cause. Hume and Brown regard 
cause a9 mere invariable sequence. This theory of causation con- 
founds two facts* That every event must have some antecedent or 
other, is one thing ; that this particular event must have this par- 
ticular antecedent, is a very different thing. The uniformity of 
nature is only a law of things, an observed fact, the contradictory 
of which is at any time conceivable. This portion of the principle 
of causation is not a necessary truth. But that every event must 
have some antecedent or other is a necessary truth. For we must 
think every event as occurring in time, and therefore as related to 
some antecedent in time. Thus far Mr. Hansel adopts the theory 
of Sir W. Hamilton. 

The analysis that resolves causation into mere temporal antece- 
dents is, however, imperfect. To complete the notion of cause, we 
must add the idea of productive power. Eeid was unable to meet 
Hume's theory of causation, as he was unable to meet his theory of 
substance, and in both cases for the same reason. He denied a con- 
sciousness of mind as* distinguished from its states and operations. 
Hume showed that volition had no power to move a limb, for 
paralysis might supervene, and the supposed power of volition 
would be destroyed. Mr. Mansel seeks for an intuition of power. 
' The intuition of Power is not immediately given in the action of 
matter upon matter ; nor yet can it be given in the action of 
matter upon mind, nor in that of mind upon matter ; for to this 
day we are utterly ignorant how matter and mind operate upon 
each other.' Where, then, is such an intuition to be found ? In 
mind as determining its own modifications. '"In every act of voli- 
tion, I am fully conscious that it is in my power to form the reso- 
lution or to abstain ; and this constitutes the presentative con- 
sciousness of free will and of power.' The idea of power is thus 
a relation between ourselves and our volitions (not our move- 
ments). Can any similar relation exist between the heat of fire 
and the melting of wax ? It cannot be said that there is ; and 
thus Causality, as applied to matter, is a negative notion. The 
only positive meaning of cause is either some antecedent or an 
invariable antecedent. Mr. Mansel (in this respect following 
Hamilton) draws attention to the fact that by breaking through 
the objective necessity of Causality, a door is opened for the ad- 
mission of free-will. 

III. — Logical Necessity consists of the three laws of thought, 
the well-known principles of Identity, Contradiction, and Ex- 
cluded Middle. The discussion of those laws, however, falls more 
within the province of logic. 

IV.- — Moral Necessity. Moral judgments are necessary, as, 
e.g., ingratitude and treachery must at all times be worthy of con- 
demnation. (For the theory of duty, see Ethical Systems, 
Mansel.) 









76 APPENDIX — HAPPINESS. 



C. — On Happiness. 

The highest application of the facts and laws of the mind is to 
Human Happiness. The doctrines relative to the Feelings have 
the most direct bearing on this end. It may be useful to resume 
briefly the various considerations bearing upon Happiness, and to 
compare them with the maxims that have grown up in the ex- 
perience of mankind. We shall thus also supply an indispensable 
chapter of Ethics. 

Happiness being defined the surplus of pleasure over pain, its 
pursuit must lie in accumulating things agreeable, and in warding 
off the opposites. The susceptibilities of the mind to enjoyment 
should be gratified to the utmost, and the susceptibilities to suffer- 
ing should be spared to the utmost. It is impossible to contest 
this general conclusion, without altering the signification of the 
word. Still, the practical carrying out of the maxim, under all 
the complications of the human system, bodily and mental, de- 
mands many adjustments and reservations. 

If the enumeration of Muscular Feelings, Sensations, and 
Emotions be complete, it contains all our pleasures and pains. It 
is unnecessary to repeat the list in detail. On the side of Plea- 
sube, we have, as leading elements ; — Muscular Exercise, Eest 
after exercise; Healthy Organic Sensibility in general, and 
Alimentary Sensations in particular ; Sweet Tastes and Odours ; 
Soft and Warm Touches ; Melody and Harmony in Sound ; Cheer- 
ful Light and Coloured Spectacle ; the Sexual feelings ; Liberty 
after constraint ; Novelty and Wonder ; the warm Tender Emo- 
tions ; Sexual, Maternal and Paternal Love, Friendship, Admira- 
tion, Esteem, and Sociability in general; Self-complacency and 
Praise ; Power, Influence, Command ; Eevenge ; the Interest of 
Plot and Pursuit; the charms of Knowledge and Intellectual 
exertion; the cycle of the Fine Arts, culminating in Music, 
Painting, and Poetry, with which we couple the enjoyment of 
Natural Beauty; the satisfaction attainable through Sympathy 
and the Moral Sentiment. In such an array, we seem to have all, 
or nearly all, the ultimate gratifications of human nature. They 
may spread themselves by association on allied objects, and 
especially on the means or instrumentality for procuring them, as 
Health, Wealth, Knowledge, Power, Dignified Position, Virtue, 
Society, Country, Life. 

The Pains are mostly implied in the negation of the pleasures 
Muscular fatigue, Organic derangements and diseases, Cold, 
Hunger, ill Tastes and Odours ; Skin lacerations ; Discords in 
Sound; Darkness, Gloom, and excessive glare of Light; ungratified 
Sexual Appetite; Eestraint after Freedom; Monotony; Fear in 
all its manifestations ; privation in the Affections, Sorrow ; Self- 
humiliation and Shame ; Impotence and Servitude ; disappointed 
Eevenge; baulked Pursuit or Plot; Intellectual Contradictions 



THE ELEMENTARY PLEASURES AND PAINS. 77 

and Obscurity ; the JEsthetically Ugly ; Harrowed Sympathies ; 
an evil Conscience. 

As summed up in groups or aggregates, we have the pains or 
evils of 111 Health, Poverty, Toil, Ignorance, Meanness and 
Impotence, Isolation, and general Obstruction, Death. 

Looking at human nature on the whole, we may single out as 
pleasures of the first order, Maternal love, Sexual love, Paternal 
love, Friendship, Complacency and Approbation, Power and 
Liberty newly achieved, Eelishes, Stimulants, Warmth after 
chillness, and the higher delights of the ordinary Senses. In the 
absence of any considerable pains, a small selection of these gra- 
tifications, regularly supplied, would make up a joyful existence. 

There are various practically important distinctions among our 
pleasures. In the first place, a certain number are primary 
susceptibilities of the human constitution; as the organic plea- 
sures, the simpler gratifications of the ^.ve senses, the appetite of 
sex, and the elementary emotions. Others are cultivated or 
acquired, or are incidental to a high mental cultivation ; as the 
higher susceptibilities to Fine Art, the affections and tender 
associations, the pleasures of knowledge. While cultivation may 
thus enlarge the sphere of pleasure, it necessarily creates new 
susceptibilities to pain ; the absence or negation of those qualities 
rendered artificially agreeable must needs be painful. 

Another distinction of importance is between the pleasures 
that appear as appetite, and those that are desired only in con- 
sequence of gratification. The natural appetites are well known ; 
to refuse the objects of these is to inflict suffering. Other plea- 
sures, if unstimulated, are unfelt : the rustic, inexperienced in the 
excitement of cities, has no painful longings for their pleasures ; 
not through the want of susceptibility, but from there being no 
craving for such things prior to actual tasting. Human beings 
cannot be contented without the gratification of natural appetites ; 
as to the privation of other pleasures, mere ignorance is bliss. 

While it is a property of pleasure generally to prompt to effort 
and to desire without limit, there are certain circumstances that 
neutralize this tendency. One of these is the occurrence of pain 
at a certain stage, as when appetite palls by exhausted irritability. 
Another mode of quenching the insatiability of the pleasurable is 
found in the soothing tendency of the massive pleasures ; a gentle 
and diffused stimulus is quieting and soporific. These constitute 
an important exception to the law of pleasure, and give birth 
to our serene and satisfying enjoyments, as warmth, affection, and 
the forms of beauty suggestive of repose. But Fine Art also con- 
tains, and glories in, ways of stimulating unbounded desire, under 
the name of the Ideal. 

A farther mode of classifying pleasures is into — (1) those that 
are productive of pleasure to others, as the sympathies and bene- 
volent affections, and all the pleasurable associations with virtuous 
conduct ; (2) the gratifications that all may share in, as most of 
the Fine Art pleasures ; (3) those that are in their nature attain- 




7 8 APPENDIX — HAPPINESS. 

able by all, but are consumed by the user, as many material 
agencies — food, space, house furniture, and, with a certain quali- 
fication, love, which, in the actual, is limited in quantity; (4) 
pleasures where a single person is gratified at the expense of others, 
as in power, dignity, and fame. The one extreme is identified 
with the harmony and mutual sympathy of human beings, the 
other with rivalry and mutual hostility. 

The leading circumstance of Happiness — the accumulation of 
whatever can yield pleasure and remove pain — is qualified, in the 
first place, by the Law of Eelativity, as formerly explained. The 
operation of this law has a number of pregnant consequences, 
more or less taken into account in men's practice. 

1. Absolute and entire Novelty of Sensation is necessary to 
the highest zest of any pleasure. A newly attained delight — a 
mother's first child, a first love, is beyond what can ever be rea- 
lized again. 

2. Every pleasure must be remitted in order to maintain its 
efficacy. Only for a certain limited time can the thrill of any 
delight be maintained ; the stimulus then requires to be with- 
drawn for a period corresponding to the intensity of the effect. 

3. In order to maintain a considerable flow of delight, each 
person must possess a variety of sources of pleasure ; and the 
more that these differ in kind, or the more complete the alterna- 
tion, the greater the happiness. It is hopeless to attain much 
enjoyment by playing upon any single string, however acute may 
be its thrill. 

4. The reaction from pain is a source of great delight ; as in 
restoration to health, the dispersing of a deep gloom or melan- 
choly, the recovery from panic, the quenching of a long-repressed 
appetite. It is not true, however, that all pleasure demands to be 
preceded by pain ; mere remission is enough to dispose us for the 
gratification of food, exercise, music, or society. The distinction 
between the two kinds of pleasures is an important one ; the last 
are our best and purest delights, although the first may by virtue 
of previous suffering be very intense. 

5. Alternation is of great avail in lightening the pains of toil. 
When exhausted by one kind of work, we may yet be capable of 
some other, until such time as the system generally is worn out. 
The change, however, must be real : as in passing from mental 
work to bodily exertion; from reflection to expression; from 
abstract speculation to business ; from science to fine art ; from 
isolated action to co-operation with others. 

6. The same emotion may be prolonged in its resonance by 
mere change of subject. The elation of the sublime is renewed 
in passing from one vast prospect to another, as in journeying 
through Alpine scenery. 

7. The extension of our Happiness depends upon the acquiring 
of tastes, or susceptibilities of delight, in addition to what we 
have by nature. This will be again alluded to among the bearings 
of education on happiness. 



HEALTH. 79 

The relations of Happiness to Health are of great importance, 
but somewhat complicated in the statement. 

Health must be denned as not simply the absence of physical 
pain, or derangement, but also a certain amount of vigour both 
for action and for sensibility. The healthy condition is not in 
itself a pleasure, except in the moments of recovery from illness, 
or of invigoration after depression. 

It is manifestly essential that each one should have vigour 
sufficient to bear up against all unavoidable labours and burdens ; 
without this, life must be a perpetual sense of oppression. 

There is a still closer connexion between health and happiness, 
in the fact that certain physical functions of the nerves, and of 
some other special organs, are expressly allied to our sensibility. 
The human system has many sides, and many functions ; and of 
the mental manifestations, there are three distinct departments, 
corresponding to the divisions of the mind. "Now, happiness is 
not the immediate result of either Volition or Intelligence, but of 
Feeling, or the Emotional side of our being. A natural endow- 
ment for emotion, and great vigour and freshness in the organs 
concerned in emotion, — partly the Brain, and partly the Digestion, 
and the Secreting processes formerly shown to be related to 
feeling — make the physical basis of susceptibility to pleasure; 
hence the conservation of all these functions is the kind of health 
that directly bears on happiness. 

It is well known that there are great differences in diseases, 
as respects their influence on the tone of enjoyment. Certain 
forms of nervous derangement, indigestion in most of its varieties, 
enfeebled circulation, are immediate sources of mental depression ; 
on the other hand, the brain may be far on the road to paralysis, 
the heart may be in a state of degeneration, the lungs may be form- 
ing tubercles, the kidney affected with a mortal disease, while as 
yet but little diminution has taken place in the aptitude for enjoy- 
ment. In the one class of ailments, happiness is impaired almost 
from the first ; in the other, the loss appears in shortened life. In 
the first case, there is a self -correcting reminder ; in the second, a 
fatal sense of security, which as yet mankind have never learned 
to surmount by an effort of the reason. 

As a general rule, hardly any employment of one's means and 
resources is so advantageous as the maintenance of a high state of 
vigour, both in the body in general, and in the organs of emotional 
sensibility in particular. Better to surrender many objects of 
pleasure, than to impair the organs of pleasure ; few stimulants 
in a highly conditioned system are preferable to a greater number 
in an exhausted state of the sensibility. The rule may not be 
without exceptions ; a less degree of health, coupled with one's 
supreme gratification, is more desirable than the very highest 
degree without that. One may be happier in the town, although 
healthier in the country. But, on the whole, the tendency is to 
undervalue the element of physical freshness in our pursuits, not 
to see that the loss of physical tone, consequent on the excess of 







80 APPENDIX — HAPPINESS. 

toil, is a chief cause of our disappointment in attaining the objects 
of our toil. The man that has made his fortune, and sacrificed 
his zest for enjoyment, is an unsuccessful man. 

The problem of health necessarily involves all the special pre- 
cautions against the known injuries and ailments. It involves 
the still more comprehensive purpose expressed generally by the 
proportioning of Expenditure to means of Support ; — that is to 
say, the limitation of exhausting agencies — labour, irregularities, 
excesses ; and the husbanding of sustaining and renovating 
agencies — nutrition, air, regimen, and all the hygienic resources. 
It is farther desirable that the economical adjustment of waste 
and supply should be commenced from our earliest years, and not, 
as usually happens, after a conscious reduction of vigour has 
roused the individual to a sense of imminent danger. There is a 
known proportion of labour, rest, nourishment, and exciting plea- 
sure, suited to the average constitution, and compatible with the 
full duration of life ; on this each one is safe to proceed at the 
outset, until the specialities of constitution are known. Any one 
presuming by virtue of youthful vigour and the absence of imme- 
diate bad consequences, to abridge the usual allowance of food, of 
sleep, of rest, of bodily exercise, and not at the same time owning 
auy counterbalancing sources of renovation, is perilling life or 
happiness. 

The special bearings of Activity and Occupation on Hap- 
piness, have been almost exhausted under the emotion of Plot- 
interest and Pursuit. Irrespective of the necessity of productive 
labour or industry, a great deal is constantly said respecting occu- 
pation as such, with a view to happiness. Some of our pleasures are 
pleasures of Activity, as bodily and mental exercise in the fresh 
condition of the system, and the putting forth of special energies 
and endowments ; these are enhanced either by yielding valu- 
able products, or by gratifying the pride of superiority to others. 
But the all-important feature of occupation is the anaesthetic ten- 
dency of pursuit, already dwelt upon. Whatever may be the num- 
ber or variety of our passive enjoyments, we cannot fill the day with 
these ; the greatest compass of emotional susceptibility would be 
exhausted by a succession of pleasurable stimulants, with unin- 
terrupted self- consciousness. The alternation of the object-regards 
with the subject- states is indispensable to avoiding the ennui of 
too much conscious excitement ; and this is most readily supplied 
in the engrossment of pursuit. By spending the larger part of 
the day in the indhTerentism of a routine occupation, we are pre- 
pared, during the remainder, to burst out into flashes of keen self - 
consciousness. The fewer our pleasures, the more needful for us 
to have a deadening occupation to fill the time, to banish self- 
consciousness when it could only be painful. 

The explanation of the use of Activity to happiness implies the 
limitation. If the susceptibility to pleasure — the emotional tem- 
perament — be highly developed, and the sources of pleasure 
numerous and unexhausting, the portion of life deadened by 



KNOWLEDGE. 81 

occupation and pursuit may be proportionally contracted, to give 
scope to the wakened sensibilities — the full consciousness of enjoy- 
ment. 

Happiness is materially affected by Knowledge, or an 
acquaintance with the course of nature and of humanity. The 
characteristic of knowledge is accuracy, certainty, precision; its 
highest form is expressed by Science. 

That a knowledge of the order of nature is requisite for 
extracting the good, and neutralizing the evil, agencies is plain 
enough. But the wide compass of the knowable cannot be over- 
taken by one mind ; there is a division of labour ; each department 
having its experts, relied on by the rest of the community. What 
kind and amount of knowledge it is advisable for all to possess, 
with a view to happiness, may not be easily agreed upon. The 
following considerations are offered on this point. 

1. The acquisition of knowledge in any considerable amount, 
or to any great degree of precision, is toilsome, costly, and un- 
palatable to the mass of mankind; so that to dispense with it 
makes a clear gain, provided the want is fraught with no serious 
results. By favourable accidents of situation — such as a lot with 
few complications and risks, a ready access to skilled advisers, an 
aptitude for enduring the commoner hazards, a surplus of worldly 
means to remedy blunders, and general good fortune, — a small 
amount of acquired knowledge may answer all the ends of life. 
Ignorance implies large dependence on others, and on the accidents 
of things ; and, according to circumstances, is blissful or tragic in 
its issues. 

2. On the supposition that one is willing to pay the cost of 
acquisition, for the greater command and certainty of the means 
of happiness, the subjects directly applicable to the end appear to 
be these. In the first place, there should be a familiarity with 
our Bodily Constitution ; a knowledge still more requisite when 
as parents, guardians, teachers, we have the control of the lives 
of others. In the next place, the elements of Physical and 
Chemical science, besides their direct bearing on the physiology 
of the human frame, have many collateral applications in every- 
day life, as in matters relating to cleanliness, warmth, clothing, 
purity of the air, cookery, &c. In the third place, some know- 
ledge of the Mind, whether attained by observation, by theory, 
or by both conjoined, is of value in appreciating character and 
dispositions, and in the guidance and management of those about 
us. Fourthly, knowledge of the course of Affairs in the world 
generally, arrived at by observation and by historical and political 
studies, is essential to the guidance of our footsteps in the society we 
live in. Fifthly, whatever studies lead to an accurate estimate of 
Evidence, are of the highest import ; their application extending 
much beyond our own happiness. A large number of our de- 
cisions must be made upon evidence that is only Probable ; and 
to find out where the preponderance lies needs either practical or 
scientific training. The aptitude for judging according to the 

53 



82 APPENDIX — HAPPINESS. 

reasons of things, if it were more widely possessed, would be seen 
to ramify in endless ameliorations of the lot of humanity. Besides 
the success that would attend expectations so based, it is in the 
nature of such reasonings to command agreement among different 
minds, and thereby conduce to harmonious co-operation, where 
at present the rule is distraction and discord. 

The poetical and romantic pictures, cherished for the sake of 
our aspirations and ideals, are directly opposed to the conditions 
of the knowledge now depicted, and add to our difficulties, both 
in attaining it, and in putting it in practice. Yet, as these 
ideals, although they should be moderately indulged in, cannot 
be expelled from human life, it is a point of some moment, to 
know what is their exact bias, and to make allowance for that, 
when we have to quit fancy for the domain of fact. Now, the 
exaggerating tendencies of artistic embellishment, to be guarded 
against, relate mainly to the possibilities of happiness ; giving an 
overstrained account of what human nature can do, and can 
enjoy. The romancist uniformly oversteps the limitations of the 
human faculties, and throws out lures to make us attempt too 
much ; an exact knowledge of the physical and the mental laws, 
and of that crowning aspect of them, the general law called 
Correlation or Persistence of Force, is the best counteractive. 

3. In knowledge of the kind now specified, lies the means of 
conquering the happiness -destroyer, Fear. For the sake of this 
great victory, Epicurus thought the sacrifice of religion not too 
much. No other source of courage is comparable to knowledge ; 
it teaches what fears are baseless, without sapping the wise pre- 
cautions against evil. 

4. "When the attainment of such knowledge as is now speci- 
fied, is a special liking or individual taste, the concurrence is one 
fortunate for happiness to self, and a power of good for all around. 
Each highly-cultivated intelligence, combining exactness with 
extent of acquirement, is a luminous body thrown out on the dark 
ways of human life. 

The bearings upon Happiness, of Education or Training, in 
its widest compass, are next to be noted, the special department 
of high intellectual culture having been now sufficiently ad- 
verted to. 

1. Whatever training and instructions can do to fit us for our 
necessary avocations and labours, adds to our happiness. The 
pains of labour are alleviated by a good early training to the work. 
The horseman that has been habituated to the saddle from 
childhood, is not only more efficient, but more at ease than the 
late learner. Pitt's training in oratory under his father, contri- 
buted alike to his greatness, and to his enjoyment of the exercise 
of speaking. 

2. A training to inevitable restraints, if commenced from early 
years, and sustained without intermission, triumphs over all uneasi- 
ness. Such is the submission of the soldier born in the army, 
and the habituation of the priest to his artificial mode of life* 



EDUCATION. 83 

It is on this principle, that the child carefully trained to pru- 
dential and moral restraints, and so secured against the relapses 
of the neglected offspring of vice and poverty, is placed, by that 
fact alone, on a vantage ground of happiness. 

3. The amusements and amenities of life are only enjoyed to 
the full after special training. Even our games, sports, and 
pastimes, must be the subject of instruction; while the exercise 
and enjoyment of the Fine Arts — Music, Painting, Elocution — 
involve the cost of special masters. What are termed accomplish- 
ments are artificial and refined pleasures ; they are a pure addition 
to the sum of enjoyment, and have no other meaning. 

A very large mass of human pleasure is mixed up with our 
sociability ; and much of our education consists in fitting us for 
intercourse with others ; the end being to reduce the friction of 
uncultivated minds associating together, and to increase the plea- 
sures of co-operation, sympathy, and affection. 

An acquaintance with foreign languages may be classed among 
the means of pleasure. For people generally, they are the luxuries 
of education. The ancient tongues introduce us to a large fund 
of novel impressions ; the languages of our contemporaries open 
an additional field of fresh and varied interest. It may be doubted, 
however, if the cost of the acquirement is repaid, in the ma- 
jority of cases, by the advantage. 

(4) Tastes may be formed and strengthened by education, and 
every taste that there are means to gratify, is a part of happiness. 
An instructor, or a companion, may foster in us a taste for plants, 
for conchology, for antiquities ; the meaning of which is that these 
several objects find a greater response of joyful feeling. Whether 
such an acquirement is desirable on the whole depends on circum- 
stances ; the education thus bestowed must occupy a space in one's 
life, and may possibly exclude some more valuable acquisition. 

Education with a view to the maximum of happiness is a very 
different thing from education to greatness, or the maximum of 
efficiency for some important function. For happiness, tastes and 
accomplishments should be -widely extended ; even if there be one 
leading taste, it should not be exclusive ; the law of relativity 
forbids the highest enjoyment to the monopoly of the mind with 
a single subject. Yet such monopoly is the condition of the 
greatest vigour of the faculties for some one end. The man that 
towers in science, in art, in statesmanship, in business, needs to 
be so engrossed with his subject, as to be excluded from variety 
of interests ; he may have the reward of his greatness in moments 
of triumphant superiority, but he is liable to periods of protracted 
ennui. 

As there is a natural constitution fitted for happiness, so there 
is an education possessing a like fitness. 

There can be no very great happiness without paying regard 
to IisrorviDTJALiTY. The ideal state is the gratification of each 
taste, and the exercise of each faculty, in exact proportion to their 
degree of prominence. If the natural sociability be great, the 



84 APPENDIX— HAPPINESS. 

opportunities should correspond ; if little, there should be an 
exemption from society. Many persons have some one prevailing 
bent, which being gratified makes happiness in itself, and which 
being refused leaves a blank not to be otherwise filled up, Sokrates 
declared that he would rather die than give up his vocation of 
cross -questioning. Faraday was miserable till he was placed in 
Davy's laboratory. Human beings differ so much, that the very 
same lot may be felicity to one and wretchedness to another. 

The individuality that is not to be satisfied without a dispro- 
portionate share of worldly advantages being put out of the 
account, the most important circumstance is a fitting Occupation. 
To ascertain betimes the most decided bent and aptitude of each 
person, and to find a career suited to that, is the prime requisite 
of a fortunate lot. Next to a harmonizing avocation is the choice 
of Eecreations and tastes, which may infuse gladness into the hours 
of leisure, the holiday weeks, and the years of retirement. This, 
well thought of, and prepared for, by early choice, by education 
and fostering, will make oases in the desert waste of an unattrac- 
tive profession. 

The existence of unsatisfied Desire is, so far as it goes, un- 
happiness. An effort -pi judgment must pronounce whether we 
should endeavour to suppress a desire impracticable, or retain ifc 
either as a goal of pursuit or as an ideal longing. Forced con- 
tentment is the result of the first alternative ; activity in actual, 
or in imaginary pursuit, is the second. 

If an object is attainable by efforts not out of proportion to its 
value, we naturally pursue it. Contentment in the midst of 
wretchedness, squalor, poverty, is no virtue. 

The indulgence in Ideals is a nicer question. Without giving 
some scope to our longings for higher fortunes and greater excel- 
lence, we should feel that we were cribbed, cabined, and confined ; 
while such longings are liable to unfit us for seizing the actual. 
One of the most prudent and systematic of livers, Andrew Combe, 
pled for a moderate indulgence in fiction ; there is neither possi- 
bility nor propriety in excluding poetry and romance from the 
class of open pleasures. Ideals are a kind of stimulation, and the 
wisest will always differ as to the limits of their employment ; 
although there can be little doubt as to which is the safe side. 

We are next to consider the relation of Happiness to Wealth, 
or worldly abundance and advantages. At first sight, this would 
seem a simple matter. Not merely the terms of the definition of 
happiness, but all the conditions now considered, suppose a certain 
amount of worldly means ; health, knowledge, education, indivi- 
duality, are not to be obtained except at some expense ; and are 
attainable in higher degrees according to the resources at our dis- 
posal. The general rule is apparently what is expressed in the 
remark of Sydney Smith, that he was a happier man for every 
additional guinea that came to him. Such at least is the deliberate 
judgment of the great mass of mankind, and the guiding principle 
of nearly all their labours ; some may be industrious from other 



WEALTH. — VIRTUE. 85 

motives, but the general multitude labour for money. And scarcely 
;any limit is admitted to the pursuit ; it would seem as if, at no 
pitch of pecuniary fortune, farther acquisition were considered 
futile. 

Some of the consequences of this principle in its naked and 
unqualified aspect are undoubtedly grave and unpalatable to con- 
template. Whoever would wish to believe in something like 
equality among human beings, must revolt at a doctrine which 
proportions enjoyment to wealth, and assigns to the millions of 
mankind a lot incompatible with any tolerable share of happiness. 
Moreover, the prize offered to cupidity, in the statement of such a 
principle, cannot but seem dangerous to the safety of possessions, 
and the order of society. Accordingly, moralists in every age 
have sought to invalidate the doctrine, by a counter statement of 
evils attaching to the possession of great riches. With some 
truth, a vast amount of exaggeration and rhetoric has been in- 
fused into the attack on opulence. That the rich are not perfectly 
iiappy is a fact, that they are not happier than the poor is an 
untenable position. Wealth multiplies the pleasures and allevi- 
ates the pains of life ; and if it brings any evils peculiar to itself, 
it also brings remedies. 

The most obvious temptation of wealth, coupled with idleness, 
Is to immoderate indulgences. Another is the aiming at too many 
excitements, which necessarily entails troubles in management, as 
well as expenditure. A certain aptitude for business is necessary 
to smooth the possession and enjoyment of wealth ; there may be 
individuals so devoid of this turn as to feel acutely the disadvan- 
tages ; but, in their case, poverty is equally hopeless. To observe 
the limitations of the human powers, both in labour and in enjoy- 
ment, is not as yet the virtue of any class, whil it is practicable 
only to a certain grade of abundance. 

There are vices of the rich that mar their happiness ; but 
Miost of them are also vices of the poor. So there are virtues 
of the poor favourable to happiness ; all which are equally pos- 
sible, and still more fruitful, to the rich. That prime requisite, 
Health, is very imperfectly secured in the lowest grades even of 
respectable citizenship. The public registers have demonstrated 
that mortality and disease diminish at every rise in the scale of 
wealth. The difference in the means of Knowledge and Education 
is no less strongly in favour of the superior happiness of the rich. 

The relationship of Happiness to Virtue, or Duty, is difficult 
to state with impartiality and precision. Here too we encounter 
the fervid views of the oratorical moralist, sanctified by the usage 
of all countries. It has been often laid down, that happiness, full 
and complete, is found in duty and in nothing else. 

In order to see whether this assertion admits of being verified, 
it is necessary to approach the question from the other end. We 
must begin with the clear and undeniable fact, that duty, or virtue, 
is a sacrifice or surrender of something agreeable, from a regard to 
the interests of others ; as when we pay our share of public burdens, 



86 APPENDIX— HAPPINESS. 

and restrain our desires for what is not our own. It is the essential 
of such acts to be painful ; although, under certain circumstances,, 
they may become agreeable. It would be a self-contradiction to 
maintain that acts of virtue are, from their very nature, and at all 
times, delightful ; virtue in that case would not be virtue ; being- 
swallowed up in pleasure, it would be viewed simply as pleasure,, 
and often disapproved of, as excessive and tending to vice. 

We have already seen, under what limitations benevolence is 
a source of pleasure [p. 244] ; the main condition being recipro- 
cation, in some form or other. There is nothing necessarily self- 
rewarding either in benevolence or in duty. As regards duty, the 
principle of reciprocation also applies ; when our abstaining from 
injury to other persons insures their abstaining from injury to us r 
we have the full value of our self-denial. It is the endeavour of 
society to secure this kind of reciprocity, and not only so, but to 
make each one's abstinence indispensable to their immunity. 
Virtue then becomes happiness, not by nature, but by institution, 
If a man can reap the advantages of society without paying the 
cost, he is happy in his vice, and would be less happy in his virtue. 

It is one of the effects of moral training to create revulsion of 
feeling to whatever society deems wrong ; vice is clothed with 
painful associations, and virtue is the only road compatible with 
happiness. Such essentially is Conscience. The person trained 
to a high intensity of these feelings is unable to take delight in 
things really delightful, if they are forbidden by conscience^ 
echoing society. 

The only remaining circumstance that spoils the happiness of 
doing wrong is the existence of a certain amount of sympathy, or 
natural disinterestedness, in each one's constitution. The effect of 
sympathy is to make one shrink from the infliction of obvious 
pain, and to neutralize, in some degree, the pleasure of following 
out a natural bent at the expense of misery to others. 

But for these three circumstances, — sure retribution, the asso- 
ciations of moral training, and a fund of natural sympathy — the 
neglect of duty would, to all appearance, be the direct road to 
happiness. If we look to the facts, and not to what we wish and 
endeavour to bring about, we find that the happiest man is not 
the man of highest virtues, but he that can obtain social recipro- 
city and immunity, at a moderate outlay. To realize the greatest 
happiness of virtue, we should be careful to conform to the 
standard of the time, neither rising above nor falling beneath it ; 
we should make our virtues apparent and showy, and perform 
them at the least sacrifice to ourselves : we should have our asso- 
ciations with duty, as well as our natural sympathies, only in a 
moderate degree of strength. 

It is thus in vain to identify virtue with prudence, that is, with 
happiness. Duty is in part, and only in part, coincident with 
enjoyment. To form men to the highest virtues, we must appeal 
to other motives than their happiness, to the sources of disin- 
terested conduct so often alluded to. It will then appear that 



RELIGION. 87 

very great virtue is often opposed to happiness; the applause 
bestowed on the sublimely virtuous man is by way of making 
good a deficiency. 

The happiness of Beligion, in its relation to a future life, is 
not comparable to any of the enjoyments of this life. But as expe- 
rienced through the sensibilities of our common nature, it may be 
not improperly brought into the comparison. The religious affec- 
tions grow up like any others : they are more or less favoured by 
natural constitution, cherished by exercise, and echoed from all 
venerated objects and symbols. The religious fears are overcome 
by the same laws of our being as any other fears. The resulting 
happiness is the predominance of the affections over the fears. 
The pleasures of devotion have their fixed amount, in each indi- 
vidual, like the pleasures of knowledge or of fine art. 

The securing of Happiness in any considerable degree, sup- 
poses Method, or a plan of life, well conceived, and steadily ad- 
hered to. This is only to apply to the crowning end, what is 
necessary in the subordinate pursuits of Health, Wealth, or Know- 
ledge. Each one must choose what pleasures to follow out, what 
desires to suppress, what training to undergo, so as on the whole 
to make the most of one's individual lot. Misconceptions of 
ends, ignorance of means, succumbing to passing impulses, are 
fatal to success in all pursuits ; the victim of such weaknessess 
loses the game, or must be saved by some other power. 

It has to be admitted, however, that the stretch of energy 
requisite to compass so large an end, costs a great deal to the 
system; it is a heavy per centage deducted from the realized 
happiness. There are not a few instances where enjoyment is 
attained without any plan at all, the accidents being favourable ; 
just as many persons have health, or wealth, without a thought 
of one or other; being all the happier that thought can be 
dispensed with. 

Some individualities are so unfitted for prudential foresight, 
that they must either come under the sway of others or be left to 
the accidents. A being of a higher order, looking before and 
after, will desire a plan, and endeavour to abide by it. Forming 
an estimate of life as a whole, such a being has a settled tone of 
mind corresponding to that, not being much elated nor much 
depressed, by the fluctuations on one side or the other. If attain- 
able by the individual, this settled and balanced estimate is 
worthy of the highest endeavours. It might be artificially aided, 
by diary or record, which would recall to mind, more forcibly 
than the best memory, the tenor of life in the long run, to quell 
the exaggerations of the passing moods. 



88 



APPENDIX — CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE MIND. 



J).— Classifications of the Mind. 



THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS, 

1. THOMAS AQUINAS. 

First, Powers preceding the Intellect. 

I. — Yegetatite. 1. Nutrition; 2. Growth; 3. Generation, 

II. — External Senses (five in number). 

III. — Internal Senses. 1. Common Sense (the sense that 
compares and distinguishes the objects of the several senses) ; 
2. Imagination; 3. JEstimativa (discerning in objects what is not 
revealed by the senses, as the enmity of the wolf to the sheep) ; 

4. Memory (including Eeminiscence). 

Secondly, The Intellect — comprising, 1. Memory (the retention 
or conservation of species)) 2. Reason; 3. Inielligentia (properly 
an act of the intellect) ; 4. both practical and speculative Reason ; 

5. Conscience, 

2. HERBERT OP CHERBURY. 

His classification is mixed, and we give it as it stands^ includ- 
ing Emotions as weH as Intellect. 

I.— Natural Instinct (explained under the history of In- 
tuition, Appendix B). 

II.— Internal Sense. 1. Incorporeal (having no physical 
antecedents, as joy, love, hope, trust) ; 2. Corporeal, arising from 
the humores (hunger, thirst, lust, melancholy, &c.) ; 3. Objective 
feelings (ah objectis invectij, including certain pleasures and pains 
derived from external objects ; 4. Mixed Sense, 

III.— External Senses, not confined absurdly to five; for 
there are as many senses as there are differ entice in the objects 
of sense. 

IY. — Disctjrsus, which is the faculty of inteUect proper, 

3. GASSENDI. 

I.— Sense. 
II. — Phantasy. 

III. — Intellect. 1. Apprehension of God or Spirits; 2, Re- 
flection ; and 3. Reasoning, 

4. THOMAS KEIB. 

1. External Senses ; 2. Memory ; 3. Conception or Simple Appre- 
hension; 4. Abstraction (Nominalism and Realism); 5. Judgment 
(First Truths) ; 6. Reasoning (Demonstration and Probable Reason- 
ing); 7. Taste, 

5. DUGALD STEWART. 

1. Consciousness; 2. External Perception; 3. Attention; 4. Con- 
ception; 5. Abstraction; 6. Association of Ideas; 7. Memory; 8. 
Imagination; 9. Reasoning (taking up Logic). 

6. THOMAS BROWN. 

I.— External Affections. 1. Sensation; 2. Organic States. 
II. — Internal Aeeections. 1. Intellectual States. (1) Simple 



THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.— THE EMOTIONS. 89 

Suggestion (the laws of Association) ; and (2) Eelative Suggestion 
(Comparison, Eesemblance). 2. The Emotions (given in detail 
afterwards). 

7. SIR W. HAMILTON. 

Sir W. Hamilton enumerates six faculties: — 1. Presentative 
(the Senses and Self-consciousness) ; 2. Conservative (mere retention 
in the memory) ; 3. Reproductive (depends on the Laws of Associ- 
ation) ; 4. Elaborative (Abstraction and Eeasoning) ; 5. Represen- 
tative (Imagination) ; 6. Regulative (the faculty of a priori truths). 

8. SAMUEL BAILEY. 

I. — Discerning. 1. Through the Senses; 2. Not through the 
Senses (Introspection), 

II. — Conceiving, having ideas or mental representations. 1. 
Conceiving without individual recognition ; 2. Conceiving with indi- 
vidual recognition; 3. Imagining , or conceiving under new com- 
binations. 

III. — Believing, 1. On evidence, and 2. ivithout evidence. 

IY. — Eeasoning, 1. Contingent, and 2. Demonstrative. 

9. HERBERT SPENCER. 

Mr. Spencer defines cognitions as the relations subsisting 
among our feelings, and classifies them as follows ; 1. Presentative 
cognitions (localizing sensations) ; 2. Presentative-representative, 
perception of the whole from a part (as when the sight of an 
orange brings to mind all its other attributes); 3. Representative ; 
including all acts of recollection : 4. Re-representative, the higher 
abstractions formed by symbols, as in Mathematics. 

10. For the sake of comparison, we may add the classification 
adopted in the present volume. I. — The Antecedents of the 
Intellect. 1. Muscularity, and 2. The Senses. II. — The In- 
tellect. 1. Discrimination, or the sense of difference; 2. Simi- 
larity, or the sense of agreement; and 3. Retentiveness. 



THE EMOTIONS. 

1. REID. 

His Active Powers are divided into three parts : — 

I. — Mechanical Principles of Action. 1. Instinct; 2. Habit. 

II. — Animal Principles. 1. Appetites; 2. Desires (Power, 
Esteem, Knowledge) ; 3. Affections (Benevolent and Malevolent ; 
Passion, Disposition, Opinion). 

III. — Eational Principles. 1. Self-love; 2. Duty. 

2. DUGALD STEWART. 

I. — Instinctive Principles of Action. 1. Appetites; 2. 
Desires (Knowledge, Society, Esteem, Power, Superiority); 3. 
Affections (Benevolent and Malevolent). 

II. — Eational and Governing Principles of Action. 1. 
Prudence; 2. Moral Faculty ; 3. Decency, or a regard to character; 
4. Sympathy ; 5. the Ridiculous ; 6. Taste. 



90 APPENDIX— CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE MIND. 

3. THOMAS BROWN. 

I. — Immediate, excited by present objects. 1. Cheerfulness 
and Melancholy ; 2. Wonder; 3. Languor; 4. Beauty; 5. Sublimity; 
6. the Ludicrous; 7. Moral feeling ; 8. Love and Hate; 9. $?/m- 
pathy ; 10. PWcfe and Humility. 

II. — Ketrospecttve. 1. Anger; 2. Gratitude; 3. Simple Be- 
gret and Gladness; 4. Remorse and its opposite. 

III. — Prospective. 1. The Desires (Continued Existence, 
Pleasure, Action, Society, Knowledge, Power, Affection, Glory, 
the Happiness of others, Evil to others); 2. Fears; 3. Hope; 
4. Expectation ; 5. Anticipation. 

4. SIR W. HAMILTON. 

Sir "W. Hamilton has, first, Sensations (the five senses and 
organic sensations) and, secondly, the Sentiments or internal feel- 
ings. These are divided as follows : I. — The Contemplative, 
subdivided into, 1. Those of the subsidiary faculties, including 
(1) those of self- consciousness (Tedium and its opposite), and (2) 
those of Imagination (Order, Symmetry, Unity in Variety) ; 2. 
Those of the Elaborative Faculty (Wit, the pleasures of Truth and 
Science, and the gratification of adapting Means to Ends). Beauty 
and Sublimity arise from the joint energy of the Imagination and 
the Understanding. 

II. — The Practical feelings relate to, 1. Self- Preservation 
(Hunger and Thirst, Loathing, Sorrow, Bodily pain, Anxiety, 
Bepose, &c.) ; 2. The Enjoyment of our Existence ; 3. The Preser- 
vation of the Species ; 4. Our Tendency towards Development and 
Perfection; and 5. The Moral Law. 

5. HERBERT SPENCER. 

Mr. Spencer's classification runs parallel to his arrangement 
of the intellectual powers. 1. Presentative feelings, ordinarily 
called Sensations ; 2. Presentative-representative feelings, including 
the simple emotions, as Terror; 3. Representative feelings, such as 
those roused by a descriptive poet ; 4. Re-representative feelings, 
such as Property, Justice. 

6. KANT. 

I. — Sensuous, coming through — 1. Sense (Tedium, Content- 
ment), or 2. Imagination (Taste). 

II. — Intellectual, from 1. the Concepts of the Understand- 
ing; and 2. the Ideas of the Beason. He takes the Affections and 
Passions under the Will. 

7. HERBART. 

Herbart, and his followers "Waltz and Nahlowsky. First, 
Feelings Proper. I. — Formal. 1. The general or elementary feel- 
ings (Oppression and Belief, Exertion and Ease, Seeking and 
Finding, Success and Defeat, Harmony and Contrast, Power and 
Weakness) ; 2, the Special or complicated feelings (Expectation, 
Astonishment, Doubt, &c). 

II. — Qualitative. 1. Feelings of Sense; 2. higher or Intel- 
lectual feelings (Truth and Probability); the ^Esthetic; the 
Moral ; the Keligious. 



THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 91 

Secondly, Complex Emotional States. I. Those involving 
Conation (Desire or Aversion). 1. Sympathetic feeling ; 2. Love, 
both Sensual and Ideal. 

II. — States resting on an organic foundation. 1. The 
.Disposition or mood of mind, tone, or general hilarity; 2. the 
Affections, 

8. SCHLEIDLER. 

I. — Sense-Feeling. 1. Connected with hodily existence (Health, 
Depression, Hunger, &c.) ; 2. Organic (feelings of Special Sense) ; 
3. Inner Sense (Temper or high spirits). 

II. — Feelings connected with Ideas. 1. Ideas from Sense 
(Disgust, Sympathy with pain) ; 2. from Imagination (Hope and 
Fear); 3. from Understanding (Shame, Eeproach, &c); 4. the 
lower ^Esthetic feelings (Physical Beauty). 

III. — Intellectual Feelings. 1. From acquiring Know- 
ledge; pain of idleness; 2. from Intellectual exercise (Novelty, 
System, Order, Symmetry, Harmony and Ehythm, Simple and 
Complex, Wit and Humour, Comic and Eidiculous). 

IV. — Eational Feelings. 1. Truth feelings; 2. the Higher 
^Esthetic; 3. Moral feelings ; 4. Sympathetic feelings ; 5. Religious 
feelings. 

THE LAWS OE ASSOCIATION. 

We subjoin a brief note to illustrate the Principles of Associa- 
tion, as they have been stated by various authors. 

1. Aristotle had grasped the fact of association, holding that 
* every mental movement is determined to arise as the sequel of a 
certain other.' He mentions Similarity, Contrariety, Coadjacency 
or Contiguity, but gives no detailed exposition of them. 

2. Ludovicus Vives. ' Quae simul sunt a Phantasia compre- 
hensa, si alterutrum occurrat, solet secum alteram representare.' 
Hamilton's Eeid, pp. 896 n, 898 n, 908 n. 

3. Hobbes gives the law of Contiguity, What causes the co- 
herence of ideas is ' their first coherence or consequence at that 
time when they are produced by sense.' A special instance of this 
orderly succession, is Cause and Effect. 

4. Locke, in a short chapter, exemplifies the effect of Associa- 
tion in creating prejudice, antipathies, and obstacles to truth, 
but he does not gather up his illustrations under any generalized 
statement of associating principles. 

5. Hume enumerates Resemblance, Contiguity ', and Cause and 
Effect ; and he resolves Contrast into Causation and Eesemblance. 

6. Gerard, in his ' Essay on Genius/ states two kinds of prin- 
ciples of Association — Simple and Compound. Of the Simple, 
there are three: — 1. Resemblance , whenever perceptions 4 at all 
resemble, one of them being present to the mind, will naturallv 
transport it to the conception of the other' ; 2. Contrariety ; 3. 
Vicinity, ' the conception of any object naturally carries the 
thoughts to the idea of another object, which was connected 



92 APPENDIX— CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE MIND. 

with, it either in place or time.' The Compound embrace (1) Co- 
existent qualities ; (2) Cause and Effect ; (3) Order. 

7. Beattie has — 1. Resemblance, ' one event or story leads us to 
think of another that is like it' ; 2. Contrariety ; .3. Contiguity or 
Vicinity, ' when the idea occurs of any place with which we are 
acquainted, we are apt to pass, by an easy and quick transition, 
to those of the adjoining places, of the persons who live there, &c.'; 
4. Cause and Effect. [The statements of Gerard and Beattie are 
very imperfect.] 

8. Hartley has only Contiguity, which he expresses thus, 
* Sensations are associated when their impressions are either made 
precisely at the same instant of time, or in the contiguous suc- 
cessive instants.' Association is thus synchronous or successive. 

9. James Mill follows Hartley's statement. * Our ideas spring' 
up or exist in the order in which the sensations existed, of which 
they are the copies.' He properly objects to making causation a 
distinct principle, but is unsuccessful in his attempt to resolve 
Resemblance into Contiguity. Contrast arises generally from a 
vivid conjunction. 

10. Dugald Stewart (herein following Reid) observes that the 
causes of Association are so diverse that they can hardly be 
reduced to a few heads, but enumerates as obvious modes of con- 
nection, Resemblance (including Analogy J, Contrariety, Vicinity in 
time and place ; he adds as less obvious modes, Cause and Effect, 
Means and Ends, Premises and Conclusions. 

11. Thomas Brown mentions Contiguity, Resemblance (including 
Analogy J, and Contrast, but thinks they may be reduced to one 
expression; all Suggestion (his word. for Association) may depend 
on prior co-existence, or on immediate proximity of feelings (not 
of objects). 

12. Sir W. Hamilton gives the following as general laws of 
mental succession. I. — The Law of Associability or Possible Co- 
suggestion: — All thoughts of the same mental subjects are as- 
sociable, or capable of suggesting each other. II. — The Law 
of Repetition or Direct Remembrance: — Thoughts co-identical in 
modification, but differing in time, tend to suggest each other. 
III. — The Law of Redintegration, of Indirect Resemblance, or of 
Reminiscence : — Thoughts once co-identical in time, are, however 
different as mental modes, again suggestive of each other, and 
that in the mutual order which they originally held. 

His Special Laws are those : — 1. The Law of Similars ; — Things 
— thoughts resembling each other (be the resemblance simple or 
analogical) are mutually suggestive. Since resembling modifica- 
tions are, to us, in their resembling points r identical, they call up 
each other according to the Law of Repetition. 2. The Law of 
Contrast. 3. The Law of Coadjacency, embracing Cause and Effect, 
Whole and Parts, Substance and Attribute, Sign and Signified. 






CONSCIOUSNESS. 93 



E. — Meanings of certain Terms. 

Consciousness. This may be considered the leading term of 
Mental Science ; all the most subtle distinctions and the most 
debated questions are unavoidably connected with it. The employ- 
ment of the word in this treatise has been, as far as possible, con- 
sistent with the views maintained as to the fundamental nature of 
Perception and Knowledge. 

Some advantage may be gained by a brief review of the various 
significations of the term. In popular language, two or three 
gradations of meaning may be traced. In one class of applica- 
tions, consciousness is mental life, as opposed to torpor or insen- 
sibility; the loss of consciousness is mental extinction for the 
time ; while, on the other hand, a more than ordinary wakefulness 
and excitement is a heightened form of consciousness. In a second 
class of meanings, the subjective state, as opposed to the objective, 
is more particularly intended ; when a person is said to be mor- 
bidly or excessively conscious, there is indicated an excessive 
attention to the feelings and the thoughts, and a slender amount 
of occupation with outward things. It is this meaning that deter- 
mined Eeid and Stewart to apply the name to the distinctive 
faculty of the mental philosopher, in cognizing operations of the 
mind. 

If, as is generally maintained, the second meaning be too 
narrow, there is no alternative but to abide by the first or more 
comprehensive meaning. In this case, the term is the widest in 
mental philosophy ; nay more, if consciousness is the only pos- 
sible criterion of existence, it is the widest term in the vocabulary 
of mankind. The sum of all consciousnesses is the sum of all 
existences. 

Consciousness, then, is divided into the two great departments 
— the Object consciousness, and the Subject consciousness ; the 
greatest transition, or antithesis, within the compass of our being. 
"When putting forth energy, as in muscular exertion, and in the 
activity of the senses, we are objectively conscious ; in pleasure 
or pain, and in memory, we, are subjectively conscious. 

Great as is the contrast of the two modes of activity, there are 
designations that mix and confound them ; the chief of these is 
the term ' Sensation,' next to be adverted to. 

A singular position, in the matter of Consciousness, has been 
taken up by Sir W. Hamilton, and by the Germans almost uni- 
versally ; namely, that Consciousness as a whole, is based on the 
knowing or intellectual consciousness, or is possible, only through 
knowledge. We feel only as we know that we feel ; we are pleased 
only as we know that we are pleased. It is not the intensity of a 
feeling that makes the feeling ; but the operation of cognizing or 
knowing the state of feeling. 

It must be granted that we cannot have any feeling without 



94 



APPENDIX — MEANINGS GF TERMS. 



having some knowledge of it ; it is the nature of mental excite- 
ment to leave some trace of itself in the memory. Farther, any 
strong emotion calls attention to itself ; it may also, however, 
lead attention away to the object cause, and diminish the subjec- 
tive consciousness. On any view, the knowledge or attention, 
although an accompaniment of the state, is not its foundation. If 
this were so, the increase of the cognitive act would be the 
increase of the feeling ; whereas the fact is the reverse ; the less 
that we are occupied in the properly intellectual function, the 
more are we possessed with the feeling proper. 

It is most accordant with the facts, to regard Feeling as a dis- 
tinct conscious element, whether cognized or not, whether much 
or little attended to in the way of discrimination, agreement, or 
memory. The three functions of the mind are so interwoven and 
implicated that it is scarcely, if it all, possible to find any one abso- 
lutely alone in its exercise ; we cannot be all Feeling, without any 
share of an intellectual element ; we cannot be all Will, without 
either feeling or intellect. The nearest approach to isolation is in 
the objective consciousness, which, in the moment of its highest 
engrossment, is an exclusively Intellectual occupation. 

Sensation. The concurrence of various contrasting pheno- 
mena in the fact expressed by Sensation, renders this word often 
ambiguous. 

1. In Sensation, there is a combination of physical facts, with 
a mental fact. Thus, in sight, the physical processes are known 
to be — the action of light on the retina, a series of nerve currents, 
and certain outgoing influences to muscles and viscera ; while the 
mental phenomenon is the feeling, or subject state accompanying 
these. The word is properly applicable, and should be confined 
in its application, to the strictly mental fact. 

2. In the great contrast of the object and the subject con- 
sciousness, the word Sensation is applied to both the one and the 
other. This is owing to the repeated transitions between the two 
in actual sensation. In looking at a beautiful prospect, the mind 
passes, by fits and starts, from the one attitude to the other ; while 
engrossed with the extent, figure, distance, and even with the 
colours of the scene, the attitude is objective ; when conscious of 
the pleasure, the attitude is subjective. Now, the word Sensation 
applies to both attitudes ; unless when put in contrast to Percep- 
tion, which, in its reference, is purely objective. In this last case, 
Sensation is limited to the pleasurable or painful accompaniment 
of the state. 

The contrast of Sensation and Perception is thus the contrast 
between the sensitive and the cognitive, intellectual, or knowledge- 
giving functions. Hence Perception is applied to the knowledge 
obtained both directly and indirectly through the exercise of the 
Senses ; the one is called immediate perception, and the other 
mediate, or acquired perception. 

It is with reference to this contrast, that Hamilton enunciates 
his law of the universe relative of Sensation and Perception ; the 



PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTATION. 95 

meaning of which, is that the more the mind is subjectively 
engaged, the less the objective attention, and conversely. 

3. In Sensation, past experiences are inextricably woven with 
a present impression ; a circumstance tending to confuse the boun- 
dary line between Sense and Intellect. When we look at a tree, 
the present consciousness is not the bare result of the present 
stimulation, but that combined with a sum total of past impres- 
sions. In short, the mind's retentiveness overlays all present 
effects ; and what seems sensation is an actual stimulation mixed 
with memory. 

Farther, as in Sensation we must be conscious of Agreement 
and of Difference, which are also intellectual functions, it is clear 
that there cannot be such a thing as Sensation (in the cognitive 
meaning) without processes of the Intellect. Hence the question 
as to the origin .of our Ideas in Sense, is charged with ambiguity ; 
yet many of the arguments in favour of Innate Ideas are founded 
on the supposition that the experience of the Senses excludes such 
intellectual elements as Likeness, Unlikeness, Equality and Pro- 
portion ; whereas it is impossible to exclude such attributes from 
the perceptive process. 

Presentation and Kepresentation. These words are made, 
by some metaphysicians, the starting point in the exposition of 
the mind. The phenomena indicated by them have been fully 
recognized in the present work, although under other names. 

' Presentation ' and ' Intuition ' are applied to signify the 
cognition of an object present to the view, in all its circum- 
stantials, and definite relationships in space, and in time : it is the 
full present actuality of sensation. In looking at a circle drawn 
on paper before us, the mental cognition is in the highest degree 
individual or concrete; it is a presentation, or intuition. But 
when, after seeing many circles, we form an abstract or general 
conception of a circle, embodied although that may be in an 
individual, we are said to possess a representation, or to be in a 
state of representative consciousness. So far, the distinction coin- 
dides with the distinction between the concrete, in its extreme 
form of present individuality, and the general or abstract. 

The distinction equally holds in subjective cognitions. An 
actual fit of anger is presentative ; the reflecting on it, when past, 
is representative. The one is an intuition, the other a thought. 

The Presentative or Intuitive knowledge is also termed 
Immediate ; the Eepresentative is Mediate ; the one is known in 
itself, the other through something else. The individual circle 
looked at is known by an immediate act ; the general property is 
known mediately through some concrete circle or circles. Sensa- 
tion is thus contrasted with Perception ; the sensation is what is 
actually felt ; the perception is the additional something that is 
suggested. Colour is sensation; distance (in the Berkeleian view) 
is perception, representation, or thought. 

Hamilton applies the distinction, as already seen (p. 208), in 
distinguishing the theories of External Perception. His own view 



96 APPENDIX— MEANINGS OF TEEMS. 

is Presentationism ; lie holds that the consciousness of external 
reality is immediate like the consciousness of colour, touch, or 
resistance. 

Presentation thus corresponds to Sensation in the third meaning 
above given ; a mode of consciousness, however, which is sup- 
posable only, and not a matter of fact. What we believe to be a 
present sensation is, in reality, a complicated product of past and 
present impressions, a resultant of numerous shocks of difference 
and of agreement. 

Personal Identity. Much controversy has been raised on 
the question as to our personal or continual identity. Some of 
the difficulty arises from the ambiguity of the words Sameness, or 
Identity. There are degrees of sameness ; we call two trees the 
same, merely because they are of one species. The sort of 
identity, or amount of sameness, intended, under personal identity, 
is when we call an individual tree the same throughout its whole 
existence, from germination to final decay. A human body is 
called the same, or identical, through its whole life, in spite of 
important diversities ; for not only are the actual particles re- 
peatedly changed, but the plan, or arrangement, of those particles 
is greatly altered in the different stages. A block of marble, a 
statue, a building, retain a much higher identity, than a plant or 
animal. 

In living beings, therefore, unbroken continuity is the feature 
of the sameness. The English nation is called the same nation 
down from the Saxon times. The identity of the United States 
of America would probably be counted from the date of the Inde- 
pendence, which shows that an unbroken political system is the 
idea that we form of national identity. 

It is, however, in the mind, or subjective life, that the question 
of sameness is most subtle and perplexed. There are different 
modes of expressing the identity of a being endowed with mind. 
One is the notion of a persistent substance distinct from, and under- 
lying all the passing moods of consciousness — of feeling, thought, 
and will ; a permanent thread, holding together the variable and 
shifting manifestations that make our mental life. Of such a sub- 
stance there can be no proof offered ; it is purely hypothetical, but 
the hypothesis has been found satisfactory to many, and has been 
considered as self-evident or intuitively certain. Berkeley, in re- 
pudiating a substratum of matter, maintained this hypothetical 
groundwork of mind. Hume declined both entities; resolving 
matter and mind alike into the sequence of conscious states. 

Locke expressed the fact of identity as the * consciousness of 
present and past actions in the person to whom they belong.' 
Person ' is a thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and re- 
flection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking being, 
in different times and places ; which it does only by that conscious- 
ness which is inseparable from thinking.' ' For, since consciousness 
always accompanies thinking, and is what makes every one to be 
what each calls 'self,' and thereby distinguishes self from all 



PERSONAL IDENTITY. 97 

other thinking beings ; in this alone consists personal identity ' — 
(Essay, Book II., chap. 27). 

Locke has been attacked on various grounds. First, by Butler 
and others, for holding that consciousness makes self; the objectors 
holding the view first stated, that the personality is something 
prior to and apart from the consciousness, as truth precedes and 
is distinct from the knowledge of it. Eeid considers it very strange 
that personal identity should be confounded with the evidence 
that we have of our personal identity, that is, with consciousness. 
We must be the same, before we are known to be the same. Self 
is one thing ; the cognizance of self another thing. 

In the second place, Locke's view has been supposed to lead to 
the absurdity that a man may be, and not be, at the same time, 
the person that did a particular action, namely, something that 
has entirely passed out of his consciousness. Consciousness is fugi- 
tive: personality is enduring and consecutive. This objection 
might have been fenced by introducing the 'potential or possible 
consciousness along with the actual. Any experience that has 
ever entered into our mental personality retains a link, stronger 
or feebler, with the present, and is within the possibility of being 
reproduced. 

Another criticism is that consciousness is confounded with 
memory. Locke, however, understood consciousness in a large 
meaning, as containing the memory of the past, as well as the cog- 
nizance of the actual or present. Yet he ought to have adverted 
to the distinction between present and remembered states, as vital 
in this question. The best metaphysicians agree that the question 
at issue involves the nature of our belief in memory (see, among 
others, Brown, Lect. XIII.). We have certain states that we call 
present, actual, immediate, as in the consciousness of a present 
light, sound, or taste. We have another class of experiences when 
these effects are no longer supported in the actual, but remembered, 
or retained in the ideal ; with them is involved the belief that they 
are not merely what they are now, but are also the remains or 
products of former states of the kind termed actual ; that they 
somehow represent an experience in past time, as well as consti- 
tute an experience in present time. 

This memory and belief of the past is not fully exhausted by 
its mere contrast with the present ; there is farther contained in 
it, the orderly sequence or succession of our mental states. Each 
item of the past is viewed as preceding some things also past, and 
as succeeding others. The total past is an orderly retrospect or 
record, wherein everything has a definite place. 

Thus the fact of unbroken succession enters into identity in 
the mental personality, as well as into the identity of a plant, or 
animal, a society, or a nation. The mind, however, is self- 
recording, and preserves its history from an early date; the 
identity prior to each one's earliest recollection of self, is only 
objective, like a tree ; the parents and others are the testimony to 
the succession of the individual in the years of mental incompetency. 
54 



88 APPENDIX — MEANINGS OF TERMS. 

The Belief in Memory may probably be regarded as standing 
at one remove from an ultimate law of the mind, namely, the 
law that connects Belief with our Spontaneous and Voluntary 
Activity (p. 337). 

Full recollection of anything assigns it its point in the stream 
or succession. This is the difference between memory and imagi- 
nation : both are ideal as opposed to present actuality : they are 
faculties of the concrete as opposed to abstraction ; but memory 
can, and imagination cannot, find a determinate place for its 
objects in the continuous record of the mental life. 

Substance. This word may be viewed, says Hamilton, either 
as derived from ' subsistendo,' what subsists by itself, or from 
* substando,' what subsists in its accidents, being the basis of 
qualities or attributes. The two derivations come to the same 
thing. 

Common language has always set forth the contrast of sub- 
stance and quality or attribute. But as everything that we know 
or can conceive may be termed a quality, or attribute, if all 
qualities are supposed withdrawn, there is nothing left to stand 
for substance. Gold has the qualities of weight, hardness, duc- 
tility, colour, &c. ; what then is the substance ' gold ' ? Matter 
has the property - Inertia ; ' what is the substance ? 

One way out of the difficulty is to postulate an unknown, and 
unknowable entity, underlying, and in some mysterious way hold- 
ing together, the various attributes. We are said to be driven by 
an intuitive and irresistible tendency, to make this assumption ; 
which intuition is held to justify us in such an extreme measure. 
There is an unknowable substance matter, the subject of the at- 
tribute inertia, and of all the special modes of the different kinds 
of matter — gold, marble, water, oxygen, and the rest. The same 
hypothetical unknown entity, is expressed in another antithesis — 
the ?ioumenon as against the phenomenon; what is, in contrast to 
what appears. 

Another way out of the difficulty is to regard the common 
language as itself unguarded and inaccurate, and as demanding 
qualification and adjustment. Instead of treating all the energies 
of a thing as attributes predicable of an unknown essence, a dis- 
tinction is made between the fundamental, constant, inerasible 
attributes, and those that are variable, fluctuating, or separable. 
Thus, as regards ' matter,' the property ' inertia' is fundamental 
and irremovable ; the properties — colour, transparency, hardness, 
elasticity, oxidation, &c, are variable and fluctuating. ' Inertia* 
would then be the * substance' of matter in general ; this, to- 
gether with a certain specific gravity, colour, ductility, &c. , would 
be the substance of gold. Such a rendering comes much nearer 
to the popular apprehension of substance, than the impalpable and 
unknown entity. A thing is substantial that resists, as a stone 
wall ; a piece of gauze, a column of smoke, a ghost, are called un- 
substantial ; they have little or no resisting power. 

In this view, substance corresponds with the denning property 



SUBSTANCE. 99 

of each object : what is also called in Aristotelian, and likewise in 
common language, the Essence. 

The Substance of Body, or matter generally, would thus be 
what is common to all Body — Inertia. 

With respect to Mind, the question of Substance is the question 
of Personal Identity in another shape. The same theorists that 
assume a persistent unknown something as underlying all con- 
sciousness, with a view to Personal Identity, would call this 
entity, the Substance of Mind, and the known functions of Mind, 
its qualities or attributes. According to the other view, the Sub- 
stance of Mind is the three fundamental and denning attributes ; 
those powers or functions, which, being present, constitute mind, 
and in whose absence we do not apply the name. They are Feel- 
ing, Volition, and Intellect; these may vary in degree to an 
indefinite extent, but in some degree they must be conjoined in 
everything that we call mind. 

A second mode of justifying the current antithesis of substance 
and quality, without assuming an inconceivable entity, is to call 
the total of any concrete, the Substance, and each one of its pro- 
perties mentioned singly, a Quality, or attribute. Of the total 
conjunction of powers, called gold, — weight, hardness, colour, &c, 
are the qualities in the detail. 

It has been previously seen in what acceptations Substance was 
used by Aristotle. Locke regards the idea of Substance as a 
complex idea, the aggregate of the ideas of the distinctive attri- 
butes. Of substance in general, he allows an obscure, vague, 
indistinct idea, growing out of the relationship of supporter and 
support, a general relative notion. If we call any qualities modes 
or accidents, we imply a correlative subject or substratum, of 
which they are modes or accidents. 

Eeid says : — ' To me, nothing seems more absurd than that there 
should be extension without anything extended, or motion without 
anything moved; yet I cannot give reasons for my opinion, 
because it seems to me self-evident, and an immediate dictate of 
my nature.' Hamilton considers that his Law of the Conditioned 
is applicable to explain Substance and Accident. We are com- 
pelled, he says, to pass beyond what appears the phenomenal to 
an existence absolute, unknown, and incomprehensible. But this 
compulsion is not itself an ultimate fact of mind ; it grows out of 
the principle of the Conditioned, from which also springs our 
belief of the law of Cause. (Eeid, p. 935). 

It has been made a question, whether Space and Time are Sub- 
stances. Cudworth, Newton, and Clarke, held that they are at- 
tributes, and imply a substance, which must be God. 

According to Fichte : — 'Attributes synthetically united give 
substance, and substance analyzed gives attributes ; a continued 
substratum, or supporter of attributes, is an impossible concep- 
tion.' 



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